


livable ;

by therentyoupay



Category: Frozen (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Brotp, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Roommates, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5669407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therentyoupay/pseuds/therentyoupay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>— In which Jack and Anna are literally the most perfectly compatible platonic roommates in history and Elsa is more than skeptical. { brotp!Jack/Anna, romantic!Jack/Elsa ; Modern Roommate AU }</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "you're worrying over nothing"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nonny-non](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nonny-non).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Jack and Anna, (mostly) perfect roommates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/8/15_. This was originally posted to [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/133773980422/i-dont-even-know-where-this-idea-came-from-but) on **Sunday, November 22, 2015**. This Roommate AU (drabble, ficlet) series started at the request of Nonny-non, who sent me the prompt: "Distracted." How did that prompt turn into this entire universe? Hell if I know.
> 
> Unbeta'd for now. If you find mistakes, please point them out! ♥

 

//

 

“Elsa, don’t do this to me—you’re worrying over nothing!”

Jack deliberates; he’s already overheard quite a bit more than he is probably supposed to, and he wonders if topping off his mug of coffee is really worth alerting Anna to the fact that he is just around he corner. She is gonna spill the beans to him about her phone call with her sister, anyway—probably come running to his room to rant out her fondness and frustration as soon as she hangs up—but on the other hand, they are still relatively new to one another. Jack knows better than to assume.

“Elsa, I totally get your concern, okay? I mean, I haven’t got, like, the best track record or anything, but you were there for most of the fake-engagement fiasco, and you know I’m not gonna make that kind of mistake again and besides this situation is so totally and completely one hundred percent different—” A tense, lengthy pause. “Well, you don’t even know him!”

Yikes. This again.

“Elsa, I love you, and I appreciate you looking out for me, and I’m still super very grateful—like, for everything, honestly, you know I love you from the bottom of my heart—for everything you’ve done for me, including the aforementioned not-so-great engagement disaster thing, but I’ve got this, okay?” Another pause. “Hello?”

At the first breath of a sigh, Jack makes a hasty, stealthy retreat back to his room.

He’ll get his coffee later.

 

//

 

Twenty minutes later, to be exact, Jack deems it safe enough to venture into the tiny galley kitchen. There’s a tall high-top table, barely big enough for one (but regularly seats two, especially if they use the mini plates) with two mismatched bar stools. Anna is at hers, messing around on her phone. For her benefit, Jack makes a point of thudding his footsteps loudly as he pads into the kitchenette.

“Mornin’,” he greets, as she schlumps over the scratched wood surface and groans. Jack glides over to the coffee pot and helps himself to the cup he’s been craving since half an hour ago. “Not feeling it today?”

She scoffs.

“Feeling too much today,” Anna counters, balancing her phone on its side with only a few fingertips. “Feeling everything today.” She’d already broken her previous phone last month, and Jack had had the privilege of witnessing that disaster, himself. He watches her balancing act with side-eyed curiosity.

“You heading to work soon?” He artfully dodges the topic of phone calls and fake engagements and sisters worrying.

“In an hour,” Anna dismissively glances at the time on her phone, then double-takes. “When are you supposed to be at work?”

Jack isn’t entirely sure, but he’s not one to admit it. “I’ve got time,” he smoothes over easily, relishing his coffee. “Is Kristoff on today?”

“Who? Oh, yeah, but he’s like, not as bad as he used to be. He’s eased up a little, so I’m kind of used to him now.”

“Really? Yeesh.”

“Lay off. He’s not what I’m thinking about, anyway.”

“Ah,” Jack settles his hip against the countertop. He holds his coffee mug to his chin like it’s a tankard of ale, like he is a mighty warrior of Asgard; the state of pajama-undress only adds to the allure, in his opinion. “You are clearly reflecting on how lucky you are to have such a deviously good-looking roommate.”

For a full beat, Anna is silent… until she lets out rather forceful snort. He’s almost offended (except he knows his looks are devious; except he doesn’t take offense easily), and then she mutters, “Yeah, well, maybe she should be worried.”

The thoughtful silence that follows is more alarming than he’d like to admit.

“She?” Jack prompts, distractedly, because as much as he likes Anna (as much as he might have thought, once upon a month ago, that he might actually really like her), he really likes her best as a roommate and a friend. He takes a careful sip of his coffee and hopes that Anna is not reconsidering the terms of their living arrangement. Or friendship. Great friendship.

Anna’s head lists to the side. “My sister,” she answers, flipping her phone and sighing out the contents of her lungs. “She doesn’t currently have any proof that you’re not like, some axe-murderer or something. Like. A sociopath.”

Well, given what little he knows about Anna’s previous adventures, such a thing is not so uncommon as one would like to think.

“Um. Does she have proof that I am?”

“All she has is my word,” Anna wearily replies. “Which, you know. Worries her.”

“Sounds… reasonable?”

“She is reasonable,” Anna mutters, letting her phone fall flat. Jack winces. “Except for when she’s not.”

Jack takes another sip of coffee, borderline awkward. He’s got a little sister of his own, but she’s still way too young for him to worry about just yet. Much.

He clicks his tongue, pushing conflicting thoughts aside. “Still no big sister-approval, then. Hm. Guess we’re not gonna be able to install that indoor slip ‘n slide like we wanted.”

“Yeah, well—we can stash the metaphorical slip 'n slide next to the indoor swimming pool and the karaoke machine,” Anna grumbles, “Right next to my successful grown-up independence.”

“Yo,” Jack points a stern, accusatory finger. “Easy now. At least two of those things are real.”

“The karaoke machine and-slash-or my adulthood?”

“Well… one and a half, I guess, because the machine was broken when we got it. But I meant the independence part, for the record.”

“Great,” Anna nuzzles her nose into the table. “I can’t figure out how to fix either of those things.”

(In Jack’s opinion you didn’t really need a machine for karaoke, but that is beside the point and he doesn’t actually sing enough to know, karaoke or otherwise. Also for the record.)

“It can’t be all that bad,” Jack says lightly, but in truth he takes an uncertain glance around the apartment. Yeah, it’s a modest apartment, but at least it’s relatively clean. And safe. And up to code, according to some forms that they probably signed or something.

“I don’t know,” Anna rests her chin directly on the tabletop. “Elsa always seems to find things that could go wrong… and then things that could go really wrong.”

“Well, she can’t be right about that stuff all the time.”

Anna tilts her head. Says nothing.

Jack glances into his coffee, curious. It sloshes up against the side in a funny way. “Has she always been so uptight?”

“Cautious… is what she calls it. And maybe. I guess so.” Ah. Yes. Jack is a little fuzzy on the details, but once again it seems that there’s more to the story of their sisterhood than what he’s heard. “I don’t know. She’s always gonna feel like she has to take care of me… I just want to lessen the load, you know?”

“So you got an apartment and a job and a roommate,” Jack points out. “Solid choices. Especially that last one.”

Anna considers him for a long moment. The moment is distorted, or perhaps enhanced, by the fact that her chin is still mushed onto the tabletop.

“Actually,” Anna reluctantly begins, nose scrunching with some unnameable annoyance, for there is also resignation in her hunched over shoulders. “I think that’s part of the problem. Or most of it, really.”

Ah, well.

Here they are, then.

Jack folds his lips underneath his teeth then forces a pleasant, close-lipped smile. They smack open. “So… still not a fan of the roommate, then?”

“More like… Afraid I’m a fan,” Anna sighs. “So yeah. No. She’s not.”

Jack ponders this. He swirls the coffee in his cup. “Huh.”

“Yeah. I don’t know.”

Something occurs to Jack. “Is it just because I’m a guy?”

“More like… she doesn’t know you. And also probably because you’re an attractive guy.”

Something else occurs to Jack. “She knows what I look like?”

This strikes Jack as unreasonably unfair; Anna’s sister probably knows all about him, yet he has no idea what other cautious, uptight, charmingly red-headed variations of Anna could be running around town.

“No. I just told her you are.”

Jack smiles into the rim. “Indeed,” he grins, but it’s partially muffled. “Have you also told her about my other fabulous qualities? Like my collection of axes?”

“She was very fixated on 'male’, 'young’, and 'sometimes refuses to wear pants’.”

Anna, smirking, pointedly does not glance down to the patterned boxer shorts currently below his gray t-shirt; as a direct result, neither does he.

“Touché,” he says, and sips. Damn—almost done with his second cup.

“I just want her to trust me,” Anna reveals, lifting herself up and staring at the wall. “She has enough to worry about without my problems too. She should actually put herself first for once.”

Jack is suddenly dragged from his slightly guilty musings that, huh, if his little sister were living out her early twenties in an impulsive apartment-living situation decision with a deviously attractive young man who resolutely did not wear shoes (or pants) in their shared apartment—

“What is it gonna take for her to be okay with this?” He asks, quite before he knows what he’s doing, really.

Anna looks at him with such hope.

“Just… out of curiosity… would it be the weirdest thing ever if I asked you to meet her?”

 

//


	2. "your apartment is very close to the laundromat and a corner grocery store"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Elsa, Unreasonably Hot Sister of Jack's Roommate, and certified-Skeptic.
> 
> Enter, also: Jack's horrible luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/8/15_. This was originally posted to [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/134161428147/roommate-au-pt-ii-in-which-jack-and-anna) on **Saturday, November 28, 2015**. Unbeta'd for now. If you find mistakes, please point them out! ♥

 

//

 

Other guys (you know, like the lucky, smooth, debonair sort of ones) might have handled this situation so much better than he has. Other guys, for example, upon receiving a marginally-unexpected guest at their humble, sort of a mess shoebox-of-an-apartment abode at the very start of a relatively vague timeframe given to them by their roommate (a timeframe for which said guest could be expected, which is to say: 10am to 3pm), these other guys would be greeting their roommate’s exceptionally hot (freckled, braided, but otherwise not particularly similar in likeness) sister at 10am on the metaphorical dot while wearing a pair of low-riding sweatpants—all the better, of course, to show off their super-cut abs and that deep hip V. Those guys probably wouldn’t be wearing a shirt either, coincidentally displaying how absolutely ripped the rest of their muscles were, especially after a long morning of shredding it up at the gym.  
  
Jack is not one of them.  
  
Instead he’s wearing a too-loose gray t-shirt that is probably half his age and should never have winded up in his possession in the first place, with one too many coffee stains past careless. It’s not so much gray as it is dreary and drab, and it does nothing to compensate for the absolute lack of shredded muscles underneath. The shorts he’s wearing are dark blue boxers. They are not, technically-speaking, pants.

The look on her face is polite, but the slight widening of her eyes says so much more, and Jack is suddenly very, very disgruntled with his roommate.

“Good morning,” she greets pleasantly, though there is a note of strain. Jack only notices it because he hears it in Anna’s ‘good manners’ voice all the time, especially at bars. He’s almost distracted by this train of thought, and the sudden mental addition of Anna’s sister, until she states quite pragmatically, “I’m Elsa. You must be Jack.”  
  
“Uh. Yes,” Jack manages, because he doesn’t quite trust himself with anything more complicated until he has coffee in his system. “Hi. Sorry, I… Anna’s not here yet.”  
  
The eyebrows go up, but not very high; unsurprised much? Jack knows he is, after a month of living with Anna.  
  
There is a distinct pause before Elsa gently clarifies, “Yet?”  
  
“Well, she—like, went to go get eggs, or something.” Anna’s sister doesn’t comment, or prompt, or in any other way reply. “Uh… for eggs Benedict, I think?”  
  
Elsa’s eyes are bright, but sharp. They are a really nice color, but Jack can’t help but feel like it is getting progressively harder to keep looking at them. “Oh,” is what she says.  
  
Jack can’t for the life of him think of what to say next. He’s too busy considering the implications to the fact that so far all of his interactions with Elsa have indicated that he is a slob, and awkward, or at the very least not a morning person. That they live in an uncivilized closet and operate regularly without a carton of eggs in the fridge. That he is a terrible conversationalist who avoids pants, and shoes, but especially pants. Why is she still standing there?  
  
“Oh. Sorry, uh… do you wanna come in?”  
  
Her smile is genuine, but lasts for only so long, because then she steps inside and covertly glances around.  
  
(Anna and he had spent a whopping four hours the previous day doing nothing but cleaning and rocking out to eighties’ synthpop; he’d thought Anna’s meticulousness was absolutely nuts at the time, but Jack is suddenly very anxious about the layer of dust that he’d rebelliously left on the nearby windowsill.)  
  
“I noticed your apartment is very close to the laundromat and a corner grocery store,” Elsa comments, which has to be just about the safest, most generic compliment ever.  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Jack replies easily, closing the door behind them. He keeps talking so she hopefully won’t notice that their front door currently sports three varieties of locks. “The family is super friendly…” And using the adjoining dry cleaner’s place as a front for some sort of stolen phone black market, but he’s not about to mention that.  
  
“Hmm,” Elsa politely hums, glancing around. She hasn’t removed her coat yet, so Jack doesn’t know what to make of that.  
  
“I can show you to Anna’s room, if you want to check it out while you wait.”  
  
Should… he be mentioning Anna’s room?  
  
In the split second it takes for Jack to wonder if what he has just said could be in any way incriminating, Elsa seems to key in on his every mote of distress.  
  
“You wouldn’t mind?”  
  
There is a weird, unnameable glint to her eye that makes Jack think of the word ' _challenge_ ', and Jack’s stomach does an extremely uncomfortable flop; he is subsequently torn between annoying visions of inviting her into his room instead and the very real need to distract her so he can go brush his teeth. (And change his clothes, wash his face, and comb his hair, maybe—?)  
  
“No, yeah,” Jack enthuses, already leading her down the narrow hall. “You should totally check it out before she, you know, comes back and tries to hide the whole chocolate stash out of your reach.”  
  
Elsa’s voice is so serious when she says, “If she hasn’t done it already, it is no fault but her own,” that he actually snickers.  
  
“Oh, uh—don’t mind that,” Jack tries to brush off dismissively, quickly closing the door to his messy bedroom just two seconds too late. His glance behind to Elsa’s amused smirk tells him that she’s already seen too much.  
  
“Here you are,” he announces proudly, already itching to get away and find a clean shirt. Clean anything. “Make yourself, you know. At home, or whatever it is that they say.”  
  
Elsa is still amused. “Thank you.”  
  
“Right. Well. Okay, then. I’ll just—be around.”  
  
Let the record show that the only other time Jack has ever gotten ready (and so awake) so quickly was sophomore year on the hideous morning of his nearly-missed English Lit final, and he’d only looked half as good as he does now.  
  
Let it also show that it is a very conscious decision, and a very sly sort of smile on Elsa’s face, that leads to and results from Jack’s current ensemble of freshly washed jeans and a rather good-looking sweater, if he does say so himself, and it is in no way helpful when Anna bursts through the door in a fit of apologies and, “Oh, good good good, he let you in, I’m so sorry I kept you waiting, I just forgot that is used up all of the eggs during last week’s apartment omelette competition and Jack—why are you dressed so fancy?”  
  
  
//  
  
  
The morning otherwise goes off without a hitch. Jack and Anna do a rather remarkable job of covertly proving that they are not in any immortal danger of living there— _or is it mortal? anyways_ —and an even more covert job of convincing Elsa that they are not in love or at risk of eloping, or whatever.  
  
If anything, Jack thinks that he and Anna’s sister hit it off remarkably well, which is either the most convenient thing ever, or the least.  
  
Because when the clock strikes three, Elsa and Anna scurry off for a quick bite of sisterly linner, and Jack is left sprawled out on his too-small sofa in a nice sweater and bare feet with a light head and a knot in his stomach and the distinct impression that the front of his jeans is at least a size smaller than it was a few hours ago.  
  
  
//  
  
  
  
“So what did she think?” Jack all but demands over their late-night snack. His mouth is full, but he can’t wait any longer to ask, not even to chew. He is not normally this much of an animal. (He is not Bunny, the pretentious asshole.)  
  
“Eh. With Elsa, I already get the whole unconditional love and adoration thing, so asking for much else is kind of overkill. I mean, she thinks the place is small, but livable.” Anna scoops another spoonful of cereal into her mouth to the sound of stand-up comedy on the TV: happy Saturday night, indeed. “She still thinks we’re too far from the train stations too, but I keep telling her it’s not that bad. We’re right on the bus line, anyway.”  
  
Jack swallows down another too-big bite. “That’s it?”  
  
“Well… she also doesn’t think we’re gonna get mugged every night anymore.”  
  
“What, only some nights?”  
  
Anna lightly smacks his arm… or what she thinks is lightly, anyway. “You’re lucky she didn’t hear you joke like that while she was here!”  
  
“Of course she didn’t!” Jack rubs his tender biceps. “I was on my best behavior!”  
  
Anna licks her spoon, glaring with narrowed eyes. “You told her about my chocolate.”  
  
“You didn’t hide it well enough! Besides, she already knew it was there before I said anything, I guarantee it.”  
  
“Mmhm,” she murmured, already engrossed with the TV once more.  
  
Jack waited. And waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
“So what else did she think?” he asks, and this time he tries to drop a bit more hint to his meaning. “About your living situation? With your roommate, I mean.”  
  
Anna’s head swivels in his direction just as a bout of laughter erupts from the audience on the television. Spoon still in mouth, she gapes, “You?”  
  
“I mean—unless you’ve smuggled some other dashing young man in here while I wasn’t looking and are maybe planning to give me the boot.”  
  
Anna isn’t saying anything. She’s just looking at him, expression unreadable, with a spoon in her mouth. (It’s one of the lime green plastic ones they’re re-using from the fro-yo place down the street, because cutlery has a cost, okay.) She’s still not saying anything.  
  
“Have you snuck in a new roommate?”  
  
“No,” she says immediately, snapping to attention. “And I thought you called yourself 'devious looking’.”  
  
Jack frowns, confused by his own poor memory. “Um. Yes?”  
  
Anna takes the spoon from her mouth and begins swirling and playing the soggy cereal in her bowl. Jack might be grossed out if he and Anna hadn’t already done so much in front of, with, and to one another with so little shame; 'personal boundaries’ were continuously becoming more and more like 'wide-open meadows full of flowers and respect and ice-cream and one-time kisses and happy spiced rum’.  
  
So this silence is weird.  
  
“Okay,” Jack says slowly. “So… did I, like, meet the approval stamp, then? Did I rank higher than 'close to the laundromat’, at least?”  
  
His tone is light, but he’s not really joking; it’s mostly why he’s sort of freaking out that Anna is being so quiet.  
  
“Well…” she begins, carefully, and Jack feels his brows furrow and knot. “She definitely believes me now when I say that I’m not, like, in love with you.” Jack tries to process that for the relief that it should be, but Anna quickly follows up with, “So there’s that. She totally gets it now, that you and I are just really good roommates for each other. And friends, obviously.”  
  
“Sorry,” Jack quickly backtracks, still caught on Anna’s admission, so much so that he has to set his bowl of half-finished sugar flakes on the coffee table. “Hold on. What do yo mean by 'she definitely gets why you’re not in love with me’?”  
  
“Um, because… that was sort of the whole point of her visiting? To make her more comfortable with my living situation?” Anna tries, perplexed. “To make her realize she can totally trust you?”  
  
“So, but—I’m worthy of trust but I’m not worthy of being a love-threat?”  
  
“A what?”  
  
“She doesn’t think you could like me?”  
  
“I’m confused,” Anna twists her body around to face him, cross-legged on the cushions and leaning close, TV forgotten. “Didn’t we just carry out a whole plan to convince her of that? Like—this morning?”  
  
“Yeah, but, I didn’t expect it to work. I mean. So easily.”

"I don’t get it. Is this a pride thing? Do you want her to think you’re capable of seducing me?”  
  
There are so many wrong ways to answer that.  
  
The worst of which probably has to do with the more accurate notion that Jack would very much like Anna’s sister to think he’s capable of seducing her.  
  
Which is why he says, “I just don’t understand what she thinks of me. Are you telling me that she’s totally okay with you and me living here together?”  
  
“Well, yeah,” Anna sighs with exasperation, “That’s what I’ve been trying to say! She’s not worried anymore because she can see that although you’re totally the kind of guy who I’d be friends with, you and I wouldn’t really be boyfriend-girlfriend compatible.”  
  
“Yes, totally. Awesome.” Jack flexes his jaw. “So—how did she figure that, exactly?”  
  
Anna laughs, loud and bright. She shrugs a little as she reaches for her cereal bowl and resumes their Saturday night routine.  
  
“I don’t know,” Anna laughs again. “Probably because we have similar taste.”  
  
Jack forgets to eat the rest of his cereal.  
  
The next morning, he insists to Anna over a fresh cup of coffee that Elsa be invited for dinner.

 

//


	3. "go where my expertise is needed"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: A disgruntled cashier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/8/15_. This was originally posted to [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/135717460512/roommate-au-xmas-shopping-edition) on **Tuesday, December 22, 2015**. Unbeta'd for now. If you find mistakes, please point them out! ♥

 

//

 

…handheld hot chocolate frother or a quad-set of tiny espresso mugs with cartoon reindeers on them? 

Jack’s eyes slide from box to box, one in each hand, as he stares at each potential Christmas gift, feeling rather lost.

Tooth hadn’t been nearly this difficult to buy for.

“She likes reindeers,” he thinks aloud, narrowing his eyes at the reindeers’ charming red scarves. Anna would find them cute, but does she really need all four? He thinks of all the people in Anna’s life, and of those who have left it, all the remaining holes of what he still doesn’t know about it, and what he’s pieced together. ( _Would they make her sad?_ )

Jack carefully returns the boxed set back to its resting place on the crowded shelf. He’s still not completely sold on the frother, mostly because until fifteen minutes ago he’d never known they’d existed, but by the time he’s reached the register, he’s convinced one hundred percent that it’s an awesome gift and he’s awesome for thinking of such an _awesome_ idea. Anna loves froth. Of course she’s going to love something that’s sole purpose is literally to make her chocolate even more frothy. Jack is a genius.

He’s thinking about the added bonus that she’ll definitely let him borrow it—which essentially makes it a present for _himself_ , too—and reaching over the counter to retrieve the scratched-up debit card from the cashier’s outstretched hand when someone places a hand on his shoulder and the thought turns to “— _sshshhhIT_.”

His debit card is on the floor and his heart is racing and his elbow is throbbing, and Anna’s sister is standing a foot or so behind him, looking rather alarmed.

“I’m sorry,” she says with wide eyes, with her hand against her chest like she’s afraid of what to do with it. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” says Elsa, looking rather startled herself.

The associate behind the counter looks equally perplexed as to why all of this nonsense is happening directly in front of his register, but Jack isn’t really in a state of mind to fully appreciate his stress or annoyance. He is still trying to calculate exactly how embarrassed he should probably be.

“Startled?” Jack shakes his head. “Who’s startled? I didn’t need that year of my life, anyway.”

Elsa is about to say something, but she is interrupted.

“Your card, sir.”

Jack glances back at the cashier, who is definitely growing more annoyed at the growing line behind their accidental scene. Jack takes back his card with as much dignity as he can muster, and when he finally steps to the side, Elsa’s usual level of strain is now accompanied by an underlying tsunami of apologies ready to burst. Is there any way that he could use this to his advantage? Knowing _Jack_ —

Probably not.

“Good morning,” Jack greets, because that seems simple and friendly enough. He takes hold of his fancy brown paper store bag and shuffles off to the side.“Fancy running into you here.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Elsa winces and follows, apparently no longer able to restrain herself. “For some reason I didn’t realize that you were still in the middle of your transaction. I called your name a few times, but… now I see why you couldn’t hear me. I was just hoping to say hello.”

Jack desperately tries to recall hearing any voices calling his name in the last five minutes. Particularly one that sounds like bells and angels and maybe one too many late-night dreams that, you know, he is really just not willing to re-envision right now, in the middle of this fancy kitchenware shop. While standing in front of her.

He nods sagely. “‘Hello’, is good,” Jack agrees. “Hopefully ‘good morning’ is equally good. I am marginally more awake now, so. Hello.”

Elsa’s eyes roll, just a little. “Anna is always telling me that I should make more of an effort to reach out to people when I see them around,” she admits, and there is a wry twist to her lips that Jack is beginning to associate very much with Elsa’s love for her sister. His stomach gives a funny lurch.

“I see you’ve taken her words to heart,” Jack acknowledges, and his brow gives a subtle quirk. “Quite literally.”

Elsa’s gaze takes on the most delightful gleam of exasperation, and this time the roll of her beautiful blue eyes is no half-assed gesture, but a full-fledged act of disbelief—the kind that is dangerously nearly fond. It is an intoxicating response, if Jack does say so himself.

“Yes, well,” Elsa tilts her head, and her voice is clipped, but her eyes are warm enough to make Jack’s stomach drop. “I suppose this just goes to show what I get for humoring my sister. Again.”

Jack knows what that feeling is like.

(Probably more than she realizes.)

Before that train of thought can travel any further down awkward, dangerous tracks, Jack blurts out, “Well, I’m happy to have been chosen as one of your first unsuspecting victims. Any contribution I can make to the cause of helping Elsa be friendly to passersby in crowded shopping malls is a victory in my book.”

He stops himself from rambling, because he is in very real danger of talking forever just to distract himself from the fact that never before has anything in the world ever been as interesting to him as the way her braid hugs the curve of her neck.

By the time Jack realizes that he is staring at her braid, Elsa has already been considering him rather intently for quite some time. He is suddenly very much at a loss for words.

“I can see why she likes you so much,” Elsa says, out of nowhere. There is the tiniest show of teeth to her newest smile, and, to his horror, Jack feels his cheeks begin to warm. “You two make very good roommates.”

 _‘We_ could make very good roommates’, Jack very purposefully _does not say_.

“Thanks,” replies Jack, because he is fairly sure that he is still blushing.

There is a very peculiar look in Elsa’s eye, and Jack doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of it. It occurs to him suddenly that they are still standing near the entrance to this overly-expensive gaudy cutlery shop, which Jack has no interest in except for the fact that Anna has been making not-so-subtle heart-eyes-emoji over its catalog for the past three weeks each morning at breakfast, and Jack really does care about quality Christmas presents, no matter what old bastard Nick thinks. There is a disorientingly large crowd puttering around the shiny but otherwise useless knickknacks and matching tableware sets, and yet Jack and Elsa have found themselves a tiny nook in the front corner of the store near the cookbooks where no one will bump into them outright. Jack can hear the holiday music drifting in from the major corridors.

Elsa chooses that moment to curiously glance down to his bag and Jack immediately finds himself very self-conscious about his present for Anna. Should he tell Elsa about it? He’d already survived Apartment Inspection Number One just a few days ago, so he doesn’t know if he could handle another round of such precise speculation right now. Sure, Elsa probably knows Anna better than anybody, and she might be a great mind to consult with, in general, but at the moment the idea of presenting himself for her perusal is very unappealing.

“Did you shop for Anna here, by any chance?” Elsa asks, because she is a mind-reader.

Jack’s hand comes to rub at the back of his neck. “She hasn’t exactly been subtle about her love of baking…” _Or her lack of a functional kitchen_ , Jack thinks, but isn’t about to mention it.

Elsa’s smile turns gentle, which makes him think that she understands more than she lets on. It’s a slightly worrisome notion. “It’s a good choice,” she offers casually, and until that moment Jack hadn’t realized just how much he’d actually been counting on her opinion. Elsa carries on, completely unaware of the sense of relief that is flooding through him. “I got her a couple of items online a few weeks ago,” of course she did, “but I wanted to stop in today to see if there’s anything I could find to fill up her stocking a bit more.” Jack is already trying to find an excuse to stick around the store a bit longer, his purchase already obviously clutched in his hand, when Elsa leans closer and conspiratorially says, “I hope you won’t mind, Jack, if your kitchenware starts to look a little more… stocked. I’m not trying to insinuate anything,” although he really wishes she would. Elsa is still trying to placate his nonexistent offense. “It’s a rather lovely kitchenette, honestly.”

“Yeah, no,” Jack nods, trying to move no closer and no farther away from the face in front of his, “No. Totally. You remember the eggs. We are uncivilized.”

Elsa smiles, but does not comment specifically on… that.

“Actually,” Elsa begins, while Jack is temporarily blinded by the brightness of her face and her eyes and just how fast, exactly, his heart is thumping stupidly in his chest. “Even though I should really just stop buying her presents already, I can’t help but remember that neither of you seem to have any real sets of tupperware. Is that still true?”

“I can’t imagine what you mean by ‘real’,” Jack quips, half-without thinking. “Take-out Italian food provides the _highest_ end of high-quality tupperware.”

Elsa deadpans, which is quite a shock. There is a disconcerting amount of sass that Jack feels the world has not yet properly tapped into, and without his full knowledge (and without his better judgment) many plans begin forming in the back of his mind.

“Jack,” she states, “You are re-using spoons from the frozen yogurt market down the street.”

“We are _recycling,_ ” he firmly defends, then reconsiders. “Plus, Anna likes the bright colors.”

( _And so do you_ , says Elsa’s very knowing grin.)

He’s about to throw out a convoluted excuse about needing to buy his mother another gift (even though she doesn’t know the first thing about baking; cooking, absolutely, but baking, _no_ ) when Elsa takes care of the job for him.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a bit of time to spare, would you?” Elsa asks, innocently enough. “I’d really like to get Anna some, but it really would do to have your opinion as well, since you’ll probably be using them, too.”

She’s right, but it gives Jack an uncomfortable feeling in his gut—enough to just faintly taint the pleasant excitement over her invitation. With a slight wince, Jack turns to her. “I don’t have the word ‘mooch’ written across my forehead, do I?” He thinks guiltily of the half-his chocolate frother in the fancy brown paper bag.

“No,” Elsa laughs. “But these days, I know my sister pretty well. From what I understand, there is very little that you two _haven’t_ shared.”

Jack blinks, taken aback, but Elsa does not seem to give any outward indication of distress or confusion or curiosity or disapproval or _approval_ or anything for that matter. _What does Elsa know?_ He wonders. What would Anna have told her? How _long_ has she known whatever it is that she knows, and what does that mean for Jack?

She looks at him patiently, waiting for his response, like nothing at all is amiss. Jack tries very hard to act accordingly.

“No,” he replies, then tries to think back to exactly what he has just said _no_ to. “I mean, yeah. I’ve got some time. Sure.”

The associate glares as they meander their way back into the store, where they spend the next half hour laughing over the absolute lack of necessity for so many household items, until they finally come across the realm of Tupperware and Elsa gets down to business. Jack spends much of those ten minutes stealing as many looks at Elsa’s profile as he possibly can, all the while answering questions about what kinds of leftovers they tend to keep and thinking about how he doesn’t _want_ Elsa to buy him (them) tupperware. He wants her to fall madly in love with him and make out with him on his couch and roll her eyes at him and laugh with him and help him make fun of fancy tablecloth patterns in shopping malls.

“What do you think of this one?” Elsa asks with genuine curiosity, and it’s so funny and interesting to see her mind so at work over something so simple as which set of tupperware to buy, but this is her _sister_ and Jack is very quickly learning that when it comes to Anna, Elsa is unwilling to do anything but the best for her. She has also moved rather close into his space, right into his shoulder and arm, so that he can better see the boxed set. Of tupperware.

Jack peers down, but only because it brings their temples closer together. Goddamn tupperware. Why isn’t he just asking her out for a drink? Why does he keep pretending to be so interested in tupperware sets? (Okay, so he’s a _little bit_ interested. But only a little.)

“Hm. Looks good. She likes the small things too, though.”

Elsa hesitates, and Jack worries that he’s pushed the game too far. He’d only been trying to stall, trying to prolong their time together, but now what if he comes off as pushy? Jack can feel himself starting to sweat. Uncivilized? Sure, he can live with that, sort of. Messy and unprepared? Both truths, although not super attractive ones, but he’s working on it. A jerk?

He cannot give her this impression.

“You know,” Elsa says slowly, once again beating him to the punch. “I think I saw something like that across the way,” she observes, and Jack is already feeling a thread of anticipation as she asks, “Do you have anywhere else to be right now? Would you mind joining me for another quick visit to a different store?”

Jack forces himself to wait a full beat before answering, lest he embarrass himself any further. “No, I wouldn’t mind,” he answers, with the grin barely at bay. “I go where my expertise is needed.”

Elsa’s eyes roll, and so does Jack’s stomach. “Jack,” Elsa half-laughs, half-sighs, “You are a character.”

Jack grins, especially as they walk past the same damn associate with only his original brown paper bag in hand, and cracks jokes all the way through. They spend the next forty minutes in a similar but slightly less pretentious cutlery store, and Jack is actually fascinated by some of the gadgets instead of annoyed, and all the while his goal of keeping Elsa laughing gets easier and easier.

In the end, Elsa buys her sister a decent sent of practical tupperware from a third store down the way, an Jack buys _himself_ presents, but mostly by accident (to Elsa’s great astonishment), and Jack may or may not have mentioned the fact that he still needs to buy _his_ sister a Christmas gift, which Elsa absolutely insists she must assist with, after all the favors he’d done for her that morning, and somehow that leads to the two of them getting a late lunch at one of the bakery slash pastry shops on the mall’s lower level.

Just as Jack is beginning to wonder (hope) if this might count as the start of maybe-a-sort-of-date-thing, Elsa sets down her iced coffee, looks him seriously in the eye, nervously says, “So, I’m sorry if this seems rather forward—“ and Jack holds his breath “—but I feel like I’ve gotten to know you pretty well through my sister’s stories, as strange as that may sound. I also really enjoyed getting to better know you today, with our shopping adventure—” his chest literally swells until the brink of dizziness “—so I just wanted to let you know, informally of course, with no expectations, or pressure or anything—“ hell _yes,_ thinks Jack, _hell YES_ “—that if you _wanted_ to date my sister, actually, then I really wouldn’t mind.”

Jack stares.

“Not that you need my approval, or anything,” Elsa hurriedly rushes out, cheeks turning pink. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything, and I’m sorry if I offended you, I just—” Elsa licks her lips, a lovely dark shade, “I worry about her. And I really appreciate that she has such a good friend in such close proximity, and though I don’t know the whole story—don’t worry, I don’t,” she assures him, probably due to the look of _horror_ on his face, “But I… I know my sister, and I know that you two are very close, and I know that right _now,_ at least, you two seem to be very convinced that your friendship is a very strong _friendship_ , but… I just want to let you know, off the record, or perhaps _on_ the record, that—should that ever change—I would welcome it, just as I appreciate and welcome you as a friend. Not it necessarily _will_ change,” she added on, rambling through his stilted silence, “But, you know. Just in case. I just wanted to make that clear.”

Jack’s mouth has run very, very dry. “Thank you,” he manages, and can’t find the rest of the words he needs to set her straight. He has no idea if these words even exist, or how to put them together.

Elsa smiles sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” she laughs a little, embarrassed and amused and looking a little relieved all at once. “I just—I really like you, and I know how good of a friend you are to her.”

“Thanks,” he says again, although he can feel the dynamics of the conversation shifting, can feel the planes of the universe realigning and slotting into different places. What once might have felt like _date_ is now turning to _not_ , and what could have once been _more_ is slowly changing to _hey, you would make a nice brother-in-law_. Jack tries not to let his disappointment show through his utter devastation.

Elsa’s discomfort and guilt grows. “Sorry. Was that a little intense?”

Jack shrugs and smiles. “Nothing another cup of coffee can’t cure?” Elsa laughs, bright and pure, and Jack tamps down the urge to hold onto it.

They spend another half hour chatting before they part ways, and Jack smiles and laughs and plays through it all, even though there is an oppressive, underlying feeling of something _missing_ all the while. The nature of her touches have changed—or, at least, his understanding of them has—and Jack resigns himself to enjoy her company in the way that fits their situation best: as a friend, and as her sister’s platonic roommate. Someone that Elsa does not have any Interest in. He could get used to it, he supposes.

When he arrives back at the apartment a full hour later, a single brown paper bag in hand and five hours of confusion/happiness/disappointment/resignation/contentment under his belt, he plops down onto the sofa face-first, and sighs the Sighto End All Sighs.

Anna pops her head around the corner of the kitchenette and asks, “Is there a reason my sister, who just texted me a billion times, is so jazzed up about my Christmas presents this year?”

Jack only groans.

 

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♥  
> [ gorgeous [edit](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/136606130472/knightsquall-roommate-au-pt-i-ii-iii-iv-a) by [knightsquall](http://knightsquall.tumblr.com) ]
> 
> (make sure you visit her [tumblr](http://knightsquall.tumblr.com/post/136437763861/roommate-au-pt-i-ii-iii-iv-a-modern-jelsa) to give her some love!!  
> reblog, like, and/or send a message. :) :)  
> please give all credit to the rightful maker!)


	4. "hardly think it's a terrible way to spend an evening"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: new sisterly traditions (and new additions), hot chocolate, and unexpected trips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/8/15_. This was originally posted to [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/136196817037/roommate-au-christmas-eve-eve) on **Tuesday, December 29, 2015**. Unbeta'd for now. If you find mistakes, please point them out! ♥

 

//

 

Jack had been expecting to come back to an empty apartment.

Evidently.

“Good evening,” Elsa greets, trying to ignore the uncomfortable burn in her throat of a hastily-finished sip of still too-hot chocolate. She feels herself wince and hopes it doesn’t make her look as guilty as she is beginning to feel. Already Elsa is beginning to connect the dots as to how they’ve both arrived at this awkward situation, but she is unwilling to voice her conclusions at first draw. For lack of a better opening, Elsa gently observes, “Jack, you appear rather… surprised to see me.”

Jack hasn’t blinked once since opening the front door. He is still dawdling in the doorframe, clutching a few grocery bags in each hand; she has the calm sense of irony—the kind which can only be brought on by a cozy evening with her sister—that allows her to wonder for a moment if within any one of those brown paper bags (and one of Anna’s sensible, reusable tote bags) there might be a ‘civilized’ carton of eggs. Elsa would like to smile at the memory, but now isn’t the time; the last time she’d seen him had been over a week ago, during that strange and enjoyable encounter at the mall.

“I… _am_ ,” he replies slowly, not quite dazed, but with the look of a man who, indeed, was not expecting to come home to an apartment and find a near-stranger easily arranged over the long spread of his living room sofa, clad in a comfortable set of thin pajamas, a fleece blanket, a wall of extra pillows, and a nearby stack of books. _Oh, Anna._

This time, Elsa does not temper her wince. “I’m afraid I’m also rather surprised,” she admits, with as much good humor as is possible for someone who has just been alerted to her newly-minted status as an ‘unexpected guest’. Again. “Anna invited me to join her in beginning a new tradition… A night in honor of the eve of Christmas Eve, or something, and spending more time together.” Elsa smiles sympathetically, and wishes he would step through the doorway. This is _his_ apartment, after all. “Anna seemed convinced that you’d be spending time with your family, and I’d thought at the very least that she would have communicated my… visit, to you.”

“Ah,” Jack flexes his jaw, expression unreadable. His gaze awkwardly slides away—and away, it stays. “Nope… Didn’t quite get the, ah. Didn’t get the memo on that one.”

He attempts a reassuring, embarrassed smile, but all of the red flags Elsa has felt rising in the last few minutes are joined by another powerful fleet. As Jack finally shuffles into the apartment, the atmosphere of warm comfort and soft Christmas lights and indistinct, upbeat holiday music in the background begins to dissipate. It all leaves Elsa with the rapidly deepening realization that, for all intents and purposes, she is an intruder in Jack’s personal sanctuary… A place of mental, emotional, and physical refuge that he could very well be in need of right this very moment.

“I’m sorry,” she offers from her space on the couch, sincere and contrite, and thinks of how she can best rectify this situation without prying any more into his personal matters than she probably already has. “Anna rushed out a few hours ago to take care of a few presents she hadn’t quite gotten around to buying yet. I’ve been here for most of the day.” Elsa shifts her gaze between her obvious nest of comfort and the side of the room where Jack is very, very focused on putting away his overstuffed coat. “I was doing a bit of reading to wait until she came back.”

At last, Jack turns around and faces her. He’s wearing a pair of dark, decent jeans and a basic, dark blue sweater that fits him well, and his hands are promptly stuffed into the dark pockets. It occurs to her that she probably should have stood as soon as he entered the apartment—it certainly would have been the proper, respectful thing to do—but she also wasn’t necessarily expecting to actually have to _greet_ anyone in her favorite camisole and a pair of leggings, either. Thank goodness she’d slipped on the sweater wrap an hour ago.

“This is terribly inconvenient,” Elsa announces to the room at large. Jack starts.

“Hey, no!” he laughs, which sounds genuine enough, if not for the fact that he still seems to be looking more at the couch than he is at her. “Nah, look, it’s totally cool. I mean, she mentioned that you two were getting together, but like, I thought—I mean, you have the nicer place and everything.”

Elsa frowns. There was a measure of something in his tone that she can’t quite read.

“Anna is still determined to have me fall just just as much in love with this place as she has,” Elsa shares, choosing to bypass his comment about her own living space. “I suppose she must have felt it was unnecessary to mention this little detail since you were going to be out, yourself.” There is a line of tension that is tightening all through her shoulders, leaving her stiff and uneasy, too. “Well, this is an unfortunate miscommunication.”

Jack’s eyes are a strange shade of blue in the light. “Wouldn’t be the first time, right?”

The jibe floats with an easy air, even though Elsa thinks the air between them is… anything but. The corners of his mouth crinkle with his smile, clearly uncomfortable but very much trying to act otherwise, and Elsa’s chest tightens with disappointment over such a surprisingly botched evening. How easily it might have been prevented if either one of this apartment’s inhabitants had simply _taken the time to send a simple text message_.

Even still, Elsa can’t help but feel responsible. With a deep breath, she resigns herself to the fact that, once again, the task of taking responsibility falls to her. She hopes this unexpected interruption doesn’t wholly ruin his night. 

“Oh, Jack—“ she sighs softly, and he startles when she stands, the blankets shifting and pooling onto the cushions of the couch. She brushes a few strands of hair behind her ear as she veers closer, and tries to ignore the way he stiffens in obvious discomfort when she stops just a few paces away. “I’m sorry—Anna and I can easily move ourselves over to my apartment for the night. It’s really no problem.”

He tries to shutter his emotions by glancing quickly to the door, pretending like he might be mulling it over or thinking of what to say, but before he can cover himself completely, Elsa witnesses a quick flash of an emotion that she hadn’t been expecting. As realization dawns, Elsa feels inexcusably rude for presuming so much with so little knowledge of who he is as a person, and for automatically believing that the best way to fix this would be the solution that _she_ herself might have wanted.

“Or,” she adds, because even as she curses her inability to simply let the man speak, she simply can’t help herself. ( _He just usually has so much more to say?_ ) “This might sound rather bizarre, considering that this living space is half yours, but… you’re more than welcome to join us, of course. If you’d like.”

Jack cracks a smile at that, and Elsa feels her chest begin to warm with the start of what could hopefully amount to a satisfying end after such a disastrous start. “For girls’ night?” he clarifies, clearly amused.

Elsa finds herself smiling in return, even as her hackles instinctively, defensively raise just enough to offshoot the pleasant hum of quiet, calm camaraderie she’d been hoping for. She also finds herself crossing her arms—a behavioral pattern that has erupted so frequently in Jack’s presence that it’s beginning to feel a little _too_ familiar _._ She usually prefers to keep her hands clasped gently at her front; over the years she’s found that it helps her appear more approachable, but with Jack, she seems to keep fighting to find a hundred and one different ways to keep her distance, at least when he gets like this. As Jack’s grin grows more genuine—more _amused_ —Elsa feels her heart begin to hammer, defensive and alert. Her crossed arms tighten, and Elsa chides herself for getting so easily caught up in such a childish moment _again_. She does not want to pick up any poor habits, especially now.

And yet.

“For the newly-discovered tradition of Christmas Eve _Eve_ ,” Elsa declares, with all the regal austerity of an official royal verdict… not to mention the mischievous gleam of a woman who is at least three years his senior and who knows how very easily she could keep him on his toes. There is a striking amount of challenge that she has let seep into these words, and Elsa hopes ( _believes_ ) that her bait will take hold; Jack is by no means a predictable creature, but in many ways, he is still very much a friendly ( _lonely_ ), cocky ( _humble_ ) young man.

It has not escaped Elsa’s notice that he’s made no mention of his supposed plans of visiting family. 

“I’m no master brewer of hot chocolate like Anna is,” Elsa warns, as if he’s already given his answer, “and we may not share the same tastes in holiday films, but I hardly think it’s a terrible way to spend an evening.”

Jack laughs, _easily_ , and his hand slides over his face with the most interesting mix of reluctance and curiosity and pleasantry she has ever seen. He seems just as hesitant to accept her offer as he is dying to snatch it up. “I don’t know,” he admits, with an air so unlike his usual bravado that it makes her heart stutter, just a bit. “You sure you want me hanging around your sisterly-bonding time? That stuff’s important, isn’t it?”

He is being purposely flippant, but his curiosity is so earnest and so unsure that a new flood of thoughts and concerns slip into Elsa’s mind. What, really, had he intended for this evening? Had he told Anna the truth about leaving early for the holidays, since she’d claimed to be doing the same? Where had he been planning to go… if anywhere? They are worrisome questions, but perhaps not yet within her right.

“Would your presence in any way change the fact that Anna and I are sisters?” Elsa asks curiously, a small quirk to her lips.

“I was thinking more of how I’d be interrupting, like… girl talk.”

Elsa’s smile slants wider. She is a woman who enjoys learning to read the expressions of those closest to her (perhaps just a _touch_ too much), and there is a most intriguing flush to Jack’s cheeks. Her tone is dangerously toeing the line of something very unusual for her, but she tries not to associate it too closely with anything in particular. Jack simply brings out this side of her, is all.

“‘Girl talk’ could perhaps be _slightly_ inhibited, I suppose,” Elsa teases, shaking her head, “But then again, this is Anna we’re talking about.”

Jack opens his mouth, closes it, bites his lip. She’s a little caught off-guard by it, but decides that all of this tip-toeing around one another has lasted long enough.

She smiles ruefully up at him. “This is rather awkward, isn’t it?”

His eyes widen, and so does the slanted ‘o’ of his mouth, and before she can help it, Elsa laughs. To her relief, Jack starts laughing too.

“Yeah, okay, this is weird,” he acknowledges, hair ruffled thrice over by roaming hands. There is still a bit of color to his face, and Elsa has the strangest, most insensible, impractical desire to keep it there. “It was so much easier when you just ran into me in the mall and we spent the afternoon buying Anna random shit.”

“Speaking of… I was very regretful this evening that I couldn’t entice Anna to open your gift early—at least not without putting my conscience at risk,” Elsa reveals. “I am very much looking forward to using your frother, myself.”

For some unfathomable reason, the flush along Jack’s cheeks seems to have darkened. Elsa had often assumed that Jack enjoyed attention more than most, _but perhaps_ , Elsa’s mind wonders, _only when he is the one in control of its direction?_

“Damn,” Jack sighs a laugh, and by now his hair is an absolute mess. He keeps worrying it with his hand, and Elsa doesn’t think he even notices. Jack is considerably more relaxed, and his shrug says as much, his not-so-broad shoulders made broader by narrow hips. “Well, I sure as hell hope she likes it, because I have no idea what she got me.”

Elsa thinks of one particularly small present beneath the tree, hidden in gift-wrap that is covered entirely with silver glitter. Anna had laughingly tried to explain the significance of the item to her, but— _as is the way with most things in this apartment_ —the gift is derived from a special inside joke between Anna and Jack, too far from the range of Elsa’s understanding or experience. Elsa smiles a strange smile and agrees, “I’m not actually sure what it is, myself.”

For the first time all evening, Jack’s scoffing laugh sounds the least self-deprecative. He sounds terribly, terribly fond.

“She should be back soon,” Elsa mentions, and wonders why everything she says has to sound so formal, or directive. She’d been perfectly relaxed _before_ Jack had arrived. “Can I count you in for cookies and hot cocoa?”

“Hell, yeah,” Jack mumbles, rubbing at his eyes and face. His palm lingers over his cheeks. When he glances back at her, Elsa realizes she’s been staring up at him. Rather expectantly. “Er.”

“Great. I’ll text Anna,” Elsa nods, shaking herself from disturbing thoughts, and turns to take her phone from the coffee table, where she’d left her cooling hot cocoa and stack of books. She does not sit down, but remains standing as she looks determinedly at the screen of her phone. She opens up the messaging app, and draws a blank."

So she’s very aware of Jack’s shuffling on the other side for the room, and the reluctance that radiates off him in waves. Elsa begins composing Anna a message with only minimal focus, and almost ends her text with the same sentence twice when Jack coughs, haltingly calls out, “So I’ll—I’m just gonna. Go get changed,” and disappears down the hallway.

She sighs, then has to erase the message and start all over again.

 

//

 

Elsa has had her suspicions, but now she feels the truth of it. Elsa and Jack simply get along better when Anna is somehow involved.

Case in point: Anna’s presence in the apartment changes everything. Elsa knows what it’s like to feel the warmth and strength of her sister’s presence like a lifeline, or like a bright ray of sunshine, and it has been that way for years, for many others as well; why it should matter to Elsa that this same principle apparently applies to _Jack_ , she does not know.

Anna is all apologies when she arrives, as per usual, and Elsa is internally torn between scolding Anna for her carelessness and sharing her personal concerns for Jack’s _original_ Christmas Eve Eve plans (if indeed any did exist), but Anna’s obvious excitement for being able to spend her evening with both Elsa _and_ Jack—well. Elsa cannot really dampen her spirits now. And she can’t really fault her entirely either, can she? _It’s all working out for the best_.

This line of thought is the same one she keeps repeating to herself all night long.

Because when Jack emerges from the messy room at the end of the hallway (she’d only seen it a handful of times, but each time his door is always wide open; it’s something that Elsa notices), he’s in a pair of dark blue flannel pajama pants and a black graphic t-shirt printed with a punchline to a joke that she doesn’t get, and Elsa finds herself pouring a glass of water at the sink to keep from interrupting Jack and Anna’s joyous reunion. Immediately they fall into a rapport that leaves Elsa at the fringes, into a genuine camaraderie that warms Elsa’s heart to watch just as much as it leaves her chest cold.

For example: There is a kind of language that the two of them talk to each other in, most likely without realizing, in which their shared perspectives and opinions and experiences all merge together and allow them to speak in half- and quarter- and mismatched sentences. It’s not that they finish each other’s sentences, _per se_ , but rather that they simply know what the other is referring to without either of them having to finish a thought. This dynamic makes conversation a little difficult for Elsa to follow.

(“Did you see what’s-his-face today?”  
“Oh, him? Nah. He went off to his relatives, or whatever. I think. He was super hush-hush about it. You know how he is.”  
“I know that _you_ know how he is.”  
“You _think_ you know that I know how he is.”  
“Well, _he_ wants to know how _you_ are.”  
“Jack, don’t you dare start!”)

(“Hey, how did your thing go this afternoon, by the way?”  
“Ugh. Don’t ask me that right now. Ask me again, in like—three hundred years.”  
“That good, huh?”)

(“So what are we watching tonight?”  
“We could just re-watch what we watched last night.”  
“Anna, please. Do you _hear me_?”  
“I hear you, and I am ignoring you.”  
“There is literally no other way to wound me so deeply. I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”  
“Yeah, well, the reason I’m suggesting a re-watch is because last night _I_ couldn’t hear anything because someone was yapping his head off about—”  
“I am _wounded,_ woman. Wounded!”)

Elsa retains a placid smile on her face all night long, watching from a safe enough distance and, every so often, inserting herself into the conversation _just_ enough to remind them of her presence, without interrupting, or causing them to lose their… rhythm. Or whatever it is.

She looks down to the floor, where the coffee table has been pushed away, and where Jack and Anna have constructed a giant nest of two separate makeshift blanket-beds. They are each surrounded by their own veritable fortress walls of pillows (“No, no, Elsa, you keep the couch cushions up there, we’ll find another way!”) and a hefty load of fleece throws and Anna’s latest attempt at knitting. Elsa, having already claimed the couch some hours ago, sits atop her high tower and oversees it all.

“The hell is this dude thinking,” Jack mutters, flexing one large hand at the television in dismay. Elsa watches curiously at the amusement and annoyance that flickers down the ease of his spine, which is half-covered in various blankets that are consistently determined to fall back to the floor. He is fighting an ever-losing battle.

“Please, Jack, not everyone has _your_ skills, all right?”

Elsa is not entirely sure what Anna means by that, or why it warrants an uncomfortable expression on Jack’s face, or furthermore why (yet another) play-fighting match breaks loose between them over the largest wall of pillows that bisects their nests. By the third time Anna shoves back at Jack’s shoulder, Elsa excuses herself to get another drink from the kitchenette around the corner.

She can tell that they’re talking about her (or _half_ -talking, who knows) the moment she steps out of the room. They could be trying to re-evaluate their current situation, perhaps, which isn’t _precisely_ what she’d been hoping for. She is a guest, but she is also an _intruder_ ; she is welcomed, but she also feels very much the third wheel—whether they want to see it that way, or not. Elsa swirls the water in her glass, thinking of Anna and poor (past, current) decisions and True Love gone horribly, horribly wrong, and what it means for all of them now.

 _So much for finding a solution_.

Elsa drinks and refills her small glass two times before she considers herself ready to venture back out and watch the easy, friendly interactions of her sister and her sister’s roommate. When she shuts off the tap, she realizes that someone else has already entered the kitchen.

“Hey,” says Jack, gently, as soon as she has the courage to turn around. He looks twitchy and uncertain, and a little off-balance. He keeps trying to stick his hands in his pockets, only to realize that his pajama pants have none. “How’re you doing?”

Elsa’s smile is genuine, if not very tired; it’s late, and she’s not really enjoying herself, after all. She opens her mouth to make an excuse, then realizes—there’s no need. What comes out is a sigh instead.

“Sorry,” she laughs, then hums. “I’m actually pretty tired.”

It’s a little disconcerting—and also a tiny bit sweet—to see how quickly and how powerfully Jack associates this feeling of Elsa’s with his personal interference this evening. She can tell from the gape of his mouth, the wince to his eyes, and by the slant to his shoulders that he feels guilty, which is—well. Which is currently how Elsa is feeling too, so now what are they supposed to do about it?

Jack’s face contorts, then goes unhelpfully blank. Dissatisfied with his absence of pockets, Jack instead hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his pants. He does not seem to realize the effect this has on the amount of skin visible at his stomach… particularly the lower abdominals, where they cut into the faintest shape of a V over his hips. Before she can tear her eyes away, she catches the unsettling sight of a fine dusting of hair down his navel, disappearing into the low-slung, pulled-down waistband of his pants. Her eyes jerk back to his, prepared to _fight_ or _fly_ , but Jack is not looking at her directly.

“I promise we’re usually… more fun than this?” Jack scratches at the back of his head, uneasy and avoiding her gaze. “Or, like… I don’t know. I’ve just… had a weird day, is all? I really didn’t mean to take over your night.”

Elsa looks down into her water. “That’s very… sweet,” she concedes. “But it’s not necessary. You didn’t do anything wrong, especially not by coming home to your own apartment.”

“Yeah, well. I mean.” He shrugs. “You’re bored.”

His voice is calm, but his posture claims that he is personally affronted by this. Like this is a matter of personal responsibility. Elsa finds herself grinning a little in amusement; it’s not like she doesn’t know what that feels like.

“I like being able to see your friendship in action,” she claims teasingly, but Jack is not having any of it.

“Yeah, well, what about you? I mean—where’s your action?”

Elsa raises a single brow.

“That’s not—that’s not what I meant.” Jack heaves an exasperated sigh. “Look, I just wanted to come in and apologize, because I’m feeling kind of like a selfish douchebag, and I just wanted to let you know that there’s a spot on the floor with your name on it, if you want it.” He seems to think better of himself. “Next to Anna, I mean. On her side.”

Elsa nods, slow and sage. “Very appropriate,” she manages, without cracking too much of a grin.

“Yeah. Yes. Right.”

Elsa waits a beat. “All right. Thank you.”

“Course,” says Jack, and stands there.

She nods slowly to herself, and tries not to drown in the silence. She can feel the familiar stirrings of panic begin to wake inside her, but two deep breaths help her to recenter before the feeling has a chance to emerge. Jack seems to be waiting for an answer, she realizes.

“I’ll just be another minute,” she announces awkwardly, and Jack trips over himself as he straightens and turns back to return to the living room.

“Right. Totally. Yeah, we’ll see you—just a minute.”

Elsa is left alone in the kitchen once more.

 

//

 

She humors their Plan B for at least a half hour more, despite the initial awkwardness, but eventually decides that she has done more than enough to fulfill Anna’s admirable desire to foster a legitimate bonding session between them. Jack and Anna fiercely protest when she claims that it’s time for her to turn into bed, but Elsa smiles and stands firm; she hasn’t exactly contributed to the festivity of this evening, has she?

So Elsa slips under Anna’s bedcovers with a deep sigh, and thinks to herself that she’s doing them a favor. They are clearly whispering about her out there, as they have no doubt been dying to do since the first drop of awkwardness slipped into the air, so she is only making it easier for them, really. Jack and Anna themselves are each not very prone to utilizing _impulse control_ , for one, but Elsa would know what they were up to, no matter what… even if she couldn’t hear their (not-so-)hushed voices from down the hall. Anna has never been very _quiet_ , after all, and apparently that’s just one more thing she and Jack have in common— _add it to the list_ , Elsa thinks.

She can just picture it: Anna and Jack, huddled in their blanket nests next to one another on the floor, talking close with softer voices so Elsa presumably cannot hear. They move their faces and pillows close together to talk of their worry and their hope for her to suddenly come back out and join them, for her to have fun with them the way that _they_ have fun with each other. They’re all topics that Elsa is so used to hearing, phrases and hopes that she’s heard a million times over the years in a thousand different ways. Their broken, indistinct whispers should sound like a broken record, should feel like no more than a mere flicker of recognition of an unenjoyable film that she is forced to endure yet again, it should be _so easy_ to brush off, like everything else.

Elsa nestles deeper into her sister’s blankets.

 

//

 

Anna enters the room later, after Elsa has actually fallen asleep. She wakes Elsa, but only to say, “ _I love you_.”

Elsa smooths her hair back from her sister’s temple, welcoming the surge of warmth that seeps into her chest. It’s been an interesting day, and Elsa has learned a lot. She might have made it harder for herself, but at least it’s over. Tomorrow, she’ll be better.

“ _I love you, too_ ,” she whispers, then shoves her sister off the bed.

Anna is so shocked that she cannot remove herself from her state of chaos on the floor, and Elsa’s laughter is so strong that it threatens to overwhelm her. Giggles overtake the room, and as Anna clambers back into bed— _vengeance on the mind_ —Elsa stops her in her tracks with a swift hug, and, “ _Mom and dad would have been proud of you_.”

Anna falls asleep in her sister’s arms. Elsa feels the tears chill on her shoulder, and wishes vaguely that she could join her.

 

//

 

Somewhere around 4AM, Elsa silently ventures back towards the kitchenette to retrieve yet another drink of water. The only nightlight in the apartment is the one in the small hallway that leads to Jack and Anna’s rooms, so the trip through the living room is a bit of a memory game, in which Elsa uses her hands to feel for the expected location of the couch, the coffee table, the—

—body over which she has tripped, and onto which she has indubitably fallen.

 

//


	5. "suppose dinner tomorrow wouldn't hurt"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Elsa's apartment and love of wine. And total (lack of) control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/9/16_. While I incorporate many elements of my personal life/experiences into my stories, this is probably one of the most direct connections/bouts of inspiration I’ve ever encountered in my writing. I had what I felt was truly a rather Elsa-esque experience last night, being at an exciting (terrifying, empowering, new, uncertain) crossroads of my life and not feeling like I had nearly as much of a grip on my situation as I would have liked. Needless to say, I ended up getting relatively drunk on wine and playing at being a Spontaneous!Interior Decorator and Organizer for three hours on a work night. Sorry, Elsa. (We both needed this, apparently.)

 

 

//

 

The side table won’t fit.

She’s tried and she’s tried and she’s tried, but every variation she’s conceived of simply won’t allow for her whims; Elsa releases the hold of a button, and the long train of the tape measure slides back into its little metal case like a frightened animal burrowing itself into a hole. She tries not to think on it much.

“Fine,” Elsa announces crisply into the stillness of her bedroom. “Plan B.”

The light of the lamp is soft and gentle, and completely betrays the fact that her world is in chaos, and so is her furniture. Somehow Elsa’s evening has devolved into this: coming home from work, cooking and eating her dinner, trying to sit down and relax and enjoy her meal while reflecting on recent events, only to be _blindsided_ by the insatiable urge to completely rearrange all of her damn bedroom furniture.

And so here she is, going on Hour Number Three and Wine Glass Number Two after spontaneously embarking on an impromptu adventure in which she has upheaved all of her bedroom furniture into the center of the room and is seriously contemplating whether she has lost all control of her life.

She has ignored two of Anna’s phone calls.

Which is a bad habit she’d thought she’d broken (and in her defense she mostly _has_ ), but sometimes even an entire three-bedroom loft apartment to herself doesn’t seem to offer enough (any) privacy, and sometimes Elsa simply cannot handle any other voices in her head—whether they mean well, or not. Elsa’s already got enough going on in her head as it is.

Her cell phone chimes with the notification of an incoming text, and a reminder about her unopened voicemail. Elsa spots an opening for the armoire and prepares to move it into position, preemptively checking the protective felt pads under the four tiny feet of her dresser so as not to damage her freshly-shined hardwood floors.

(Just because she does not always _answer_ her phone does not mean that she will always silence it.)

 

//

 

Elsa is sitting alone on the floor of her newly arranged bedroom.

Her back rests against the side of her bed, wooden ridges digging into her spine. The floor is hard, and the cool glass in her hand is almost empty. She feels accomplished, even if it is for a relatively small thing. (Did she _need_ to complete this task tonight? Couldn’t she have waited until early Saturday morning to dedicate four hours of her time to heavy-lifting and careful hardwood-sliding and purging almost an eighth of her belongings?

She _could_ have, but she didn’t want to wait, and that is sort of the point.)

The four walls surrounding her appear to have more room now, but Elsa admits that this may have more to do with the fact that she’s disposed of so many unnecessary items (clutter, useless trivial things, wastes of precious _space_ ) than the actual placement of the furniture. It does not look any better or any worse than it did five hours ago, but it’s different. A small change, yes, but something created entirely by her and through her alone.

For right now, that is more than enough.

Feeling like she’s finally got something closer to an actual grip on herself, or at least this portion of her evening, Elsa strikes a deep inhale and bravely retrieves her phone.

_Are you mad at me?_

Elsa stares down at the message the reaches up into her throat, her eyes, down her nose and into her lungs; it’s not the only message Anna has sent (nor is the first, the most recent, _the last_ ), but it’s the first one Elsa sees, a preview of the series waiting to be opened as soon as she unlocks her phone. For a long moment Elsa simply stares at the screen.

For reasons that even she can’t entirely explain, she clicks the phone to sleep, and finds her way into the kitchen.

She makes sure to drink plenty of water.

 

//

 

“You didn’t answer any of my messages last night!” cries Anna, the second Elsa’s call connects and her sister picks up the phone. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Elsa finds the little white lie she likes best, and offers it with practiced ease. “Sorry, I fell asleep early. Would you still like to do dinner?”

Anna does, so she arrives a little after seven. ( _“Sorry, I’m late! The traffic was terrible, and my train was delayed and—“_ ) Elsa already has the main course simmering on the stove, and the sides roasting in the oven. There is an empty bottle of wine at the bottom of her recycling bin, though the last quarter of it had been poured down the sink; better to not let it draw attention, to take up space in the refrigerator, to be an eyesore on the fridge’s shelf for four days until she revisits the bottle again, or until that evening, when Anna would no doubt decide to polish it off herself.

“Did you change your bedroom?” Anna asks curiously on her trip back from the bathroom. “It looks… different. It’s a good different. I think.”

In spite of herself, the corner of Elsa’s lips curls upwards. “Only a little.”

Dinner is delicious and Anna is delightful, and Elsa is able to enjoy her evening without feeling the overwhelming weight of Life and all of its Uncertainties pressing down on her. When she laughs, she laughs, and when she smiles, it’s real.

“This year has been kind of wild, hasn’t it?” Anna muses much, much later that evening, well into the second round of dessert. Elsa looks up, startled by the wave of somber thoughtfulness from Anna’s side of the table. She isn’t quite sure what’s going on in her _own_ headspace, let alone her sister’s.

“I mean,” Anna’s face crumbles, and she hides it poorly, “between me moving around so much, and finding my new job, and. You know. Dealing with Hans.”

Elsa’s fingers tighten imperceptibly on the handle of her fork. She lets Anna talk, and offers her a single encouraging nod, precise and controlled.

Anna’s mouth is brave, tiny smiles and courageous words, but her eyes glisten with disappointment, with fear, with countless questions that Elsa cannot answer. “I guess I wasn’t expecting my life to really… turn out like this?”

 _That makes two of us_ , Elsa can’t help but think, but doesn’t dare let the thought rise any closer to the surface. These thoughts are not fair, she knows. They are not _real_ , or maybe they are, but perhaps they shouldn’t be; Elsa has made her own decisions, and Anna has made hers—because Anna is an _adult_ , because she’s starting to _think_ like one—and now the two of them are left to pick up the pieces.

“I can understand that feeling,” Elsa shares, reluctant to offer anything more encouraging, such as _no one does, really_ or _there’s still so much more_ and _your life isn’t over yet_. “Sometimes plans change.”

Anna makes a face. “Sometimes for the better,” she mutters darkly, grimacing into her cup of cold tea. Elsa faintly wonders when Anna will think to reheat it, but lets her make that choice on her own; she tries to keep a tally in her head, these days, of how many choices she consciously relents to Anna. She knows Anna does not notice. “Like. A _hell_ of a lot better.”

Elsa cracks an amused grin at the grit in Anna’s voice, of fire and violence and _you won’t fool me again_ , and allows herself a deep sigh of unexpected relief.

“It’s okay to blame me, you know,” Anna’s confession cuts through the contented haze of Elsa’s awareness. Her sister’s eyes are so honest, and all over again, Anna is breaking, breaking her heart. “You gave up your doctoral program for me.”

Elsa turns her gaze to the contents of her mug, still warm. Whatever she says next will stay in Anna’s heart forever; she wants to make sure the words are the right ones.

“I did,” she answers eventually. “But I left for me, too.”

“But you’ve been waiting for that opportunity your whole life,” Anna insists, and her cheeks are dry but there are tears in her voice, in her throat, in her essence. “You _want_ it. And you gave it up, because I’m a mess.”

“No,” Elsa corrects. “I withdrew because _life_ is a mess.” She thinks in sudden waves and flashes—of freedom, of feeling trapped by four walls and a bedroom set of furniture, of opportunity, of wanting _escape_ but not knowing how to find it, of feeling crowded and alone, of realizing that _control_ is relative and everything and nothing, and says, “It may not have been the best thing to do, but it was the best decision we could have made at the time. It happened because it needed to happen.” Elsa lets that sink in. “And I’ll go back someday.”

“When?” Anna wants to know.

But Elsa still doesn’t really have an answer.

 

//

 

“You should come visit tomorrow!” Anna insists, well past midnight. Elsa’s yawns have started to blend together. “Last time was such a dud, and Jack’s been complaining forever how we didn’t give you a proper introduction to the Apartment of Glory, and he’s been pushing for a legitimate dinner get-together practically since day one.”

Elsa can almost imagine that conversation taking place: the two of them cuddled together on the couch, lounging in their usual states of disarray, seriously discussing the absolute necessity of proving themselves capable of grown-up dinner party responsibilities while casually ignoring all the implications of how intimately they’ve draped themselves over one another. Presumably, while also holding steadfast to their absolute certainty in their simple status as roommates, and friends, and whatever other variation of companionship they’ve seen fit to deem themselves. If Elsa recalls correctly, the most recent term used by Anna is something along the lines of “Bros.” Anna had been rather amused by her confusion, at that one.

(Once more, Elsa allows the small, suppressed little voice in the back of her head to express her private, whispered hope that Anna knows what she is doing; Elsa would hate to have to see her be forced to uproot herself _again_.)

(She thinks back to those few painful weeks in which she and Anna lived together, in the heart of all the mess, and how it brought them closer together just as much as it almost drove them apart.)

“Well?” Anna begs, tucking her chilled toes under Elsa’s thigh; it does not do her much good, since Elsa is far colder than her sister is. “Can I tell him yes? He’s not gonna give up on this, you know. It’s actually really kind of cute how badly he wants you to, like, approve of our place. He likes attention but this is a little more than I’m used to. Honestly, this isn’t like him.”

For some reason Elsa finds her lips curling upwards, and she slides her eyes from her sister’s enthusiastic glow to the small splash of remaining wine in her sister’s glass. (They eventually opened another bottle; it was only inevitable, Elsa supposes). Her exuberance for this mission of theirs is causing Anna to shift about on the couch, rearranging her legs and arms and moving closer to Elsa’s profile. Elsa is about to caution Anna against spilling wine onto her fresh white upholstery, but Anna has a persistent knack for _just_ narrowly escaping disaster, it seems, because the stark white of her couch and carpet somehow remains unscathed.

“Would you rather that we come over here, instead? At first I mean?” Anna suggests uncertainly, mistaking Elsa’s silence for disapproval, but her words have sent Elsa’s consciousness hurtling in an entirely unexpected direction. Elsa’s mind has drawn a blank, but Anna keeps speculating: “I was thinking that maybe this little get-together would be more of an excuse for you to get to know Jack, so if we’re just looking to bond then maybe you’d be more comfortable in your own place? Maybe? I mean, the whole point I think is that he wants to show you that we can survive in _our_ place, but—and maybe this is assuming too much here—but maybe there’s a chance that we don’t… we don’t really need to prove ourselves anymore?” Anna admits hopefully. “I mean. I don’t know because we haven’t really, like… actually _talked_ about it, but it seems like you’ve seen that I—we—have a pretty good handle on ourselves? Maybe… maybe there isn’t as much a reason to worry?”

The white noise that had filled Elsa’s ears rapidly dissipates and awareness slams down from the top of her skull. “Anna,” Elsa begins, “Are you asking me if I approve of your living situation?”

Anna’s wide eyes take on an uncertain gleam, and Elsa realizes how nervous she’s appeared these last few minutes without her notice. Why does she always seem to have this effect on people? Even on the ones she cares about?

“Yes,” Anna answers. “I mean. Yeah. I’d like to know.”

“Are you asking me about the apartment itself?” Elsa’s raises a brow. “Or your roommate?”

Anna’s face ducks down to where her fingers begin tracing the rim of her wineglass. “…Both?”

Elsa takes in the sight of her little sister huddled next to her on the couch. She’s curled in on herself so carefully that she’s almost a ball. In her polka-dot pajamas with her single sip of wine, with her double braids and her freckles and _when did you grow up_ , she wonders.

_Why wasn’t I there?_

“Anna,” she says softly, curling a hand around the warm spread of Anna’s shoulder. “I thought you knew. Your apartment is lovely,” she hedges, pauses, amends, “Small. But rather lovely.” She rubs her hand up and down her sister’s polka-dotted sleeve as Anna seems to retreat out of her dejected hole. “It’s a good fit, for you and Jack, both.”

It’s silent for a moment.

“I… guess I knew already? I just wasn’t sure.” Anna frowns down at her wine glass. “ _I_ like it, which is enough, but… you know. I care what you think, too.”

Elsa purses her lips. “Well, next time ask me sooner instead of letting it bother you for so long.” Anna says nothing, continues to swirl her finger around the rim of her empty glass, and Elsa sighs. Some habits are harder to break than others. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more clear about my feelings. I’m very pleased with the apartment you found for yourself, and I think you’ll be very happy there.” _At least, for awhile._

Anna’s eyes flash with surprise. “Wow. I guess I really should have asked you sooner, huh.”

Elsa lets her eyes do the talking for her.

“Okay, then,” Anna starts, and a slow grin spreads wide over her white teeth. Her energy is restored. “What about Jack, then? What do you think of him?”

After a moment’s deliberation, Elsa takes this moment as an opportunity to top off her glass with the last vestiges of wine from the small bottle. She’s still concentrating on her pouring when she says, “Jack is perfectly suitable. In fact, I’ve told him so myself.” Anna is looking at her with wide eyes when she leans back (carefully) into her seat on the couch. “We had a very nice conversation the afternoon that we went shopping for you, and I all but put my foot in my mouth by telling him just how much I appreciate his regard for you.” More than she realizes, Elsa thinks, taking a sip. Anna is mind-boggled.

“What the hell,” Anna huffs, taking a gulp from her glass, only to realize too late that it is empty. She swipes a drink from Elsa’s instead. Elsa watches, amused and exasperated, as Anna mouths into the edge, “That asshole never told me.”

Elsa lets her smile bloom, full of fondness and feeling. “I suppose dinner tomorrow wouldn’t hurt.”

“Really?” Anna blurts, almost dribbling a few drops of wine down her chin. Elsa gives her a wide-eyed warning look, then carefully rescues the glass back to her own grip. “Oh my god, _yes_ , thank you! He’s gonna flip. Did you wanna have dinner here, or at our place?”

Surprisingly, Elsa is actually one breath away from inviting the both of them over—on a whim, as a show of trust—but a fluttering of words come back to her, a memory from a conversation spoken not more than two weeks before, of awkwardness and guilt and distance even in a too-small kitchen and _I mean, you have the nicer place and everything._

Elsa is still not sure what to make of his tone.

“Your place sounds wonderful,” she answers, and ignores the curious tilt of her stomach when Anna lights up with eagerness, when she pumps a celebratory fist into the air.

“Hell _yes_ , you won’t be sorry! Oh, MAN, this is going to be awesome! Okay, just wait until you get there, okay, we’re gonna go all out, I’m gonna cook something so delicious you won’t know what hit you, I’m telling you, and Jack is gonna go nuts over all the ways we’re gonna impress you but I’m gonna stop talking about it so I don’t ruin the surprise and you know what, I should probably text him right now before I forget to—”

Elsa sighs, unnoticed, and takes a rather long drink.

 

//

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re fretting over the lack of closure to the events of the last chapter’s conclusion, please don’t. This chapter snuck its way in there mostly because I just needed to get it out. Next chapter is from Jack’s perspective, so wish us both some serious luck??
> 
> (Also, if you have requests, please send them to me via [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/137033460257/livable). Thanks!!


	6. "keep her occupied so she's not tempted to start cleaning or anything"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Jack's startling revelation, and a newfound mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/12/16_. This story doesn’t have so much “plot” as it does “general possible daily scenarios, maybe” and at this point, this story is mostly an excuse for me to write happy, awkward, fluffy angsty mostly-realistic goodness. And Anna/Jack BROTP, because that’s very important to me.
> 
> Hope you’re enjoying! Maybe three more chapters and then I’ll wrap this up?

 

 

//

 

Life is a little confusing right now.

Why?

Probably because the woman he currently lives with is the same girl that he hooked up with not more than three months ago, who has very rapidly become something of a best friend, who plays pranks with him and eats ice cream with him and who has the snappiest comebacks, who has agreed with him upon both of their youthful, wild, impulsive souls that they are absolutely one- _hundred_ -percent better suited for each other as friends. And now, roommates. She’s a girl who is now utterly determined to enjoy her newly-found and welcomed ‘single’ status to the absolute fullest, who also shares with him a mutual love and appreciation for the rare and unusual and incredible affectionately-platonic dynamic that they’ve found in one another, who has arguably the most attractive (single, unavailable, unattainable, uninterested) sister Jack has ever laid eyes on. Who, as he has promised to himself, he will stop making pathetic heart eyes at, no matter the cost.

It’s also a little confusing, probably, because Jack has dreamed so many times about the events of late Christmas Eve Eve—and has dreamed so many different variations of it all—that he actually can’t remember anymore what actually happened.

And what didn’t.

 

//

 

The usual dream goes something like this: Anna and Jack lie forlornly on the living room floor, feeling guilty and insensitive and really young and stupid, and then she bids him goodnight with an apologetic kiss on the cheek and shuffles down the hall to make amends with her sister for a weird-ass night that Jack is mostly responsible for ruining.

(Sometimes _he_ goes to her room, instead, to offer his own apology, but that dream never really makes sense anyway because _what do you think you’re doing???_ and also because where the hell could Anna have gone?? Would she just magically disappear from the apartment while Jack enters her personal bedroom to woo/visit/apologize to her sister??? Dreams are so stupid sometimes.)

Anyway, Jack is usually left lying in his own distress in a blanket-nest on the living room floor, right where Anna had left him. He doesn’t know how long he stays there staring up at the ceiling, but definitely long enough for him to lose count of just how many times he thinks that he should probably go to bed, and doesn’t.

(The next part, he thinks, is real, because he has a bruise on his side to prove it.)

At some point, Jack or dream-Jack (or whatever his subconscious is) decides that it’s time to fall asleep on the floor in a mess of blankets like a loser, and at some point Elsa decides that she is thirsty and carefully navigates her way through their tiny-ass maze of an apartment and—this is what gets him, really, because the kitchen is _right there_ on the other side of the couch and yet she’d taken the so-called scenic route so _carefully_ in an attempt to avoid the hardwood panel in the floor that squeaks—instead, she’d ended up planting her heel directly onto his left hip. Jack, in _pain_ , yelps and jack-knifes his torso upwards like a curling spring-trap and, seeing as Elsa is off-balance and stumbling at this point in the dream-not-dream, the fierce momentum from his freakish reflexive movement is so jarring and unexpected that Elsa slips on the loose edge of a blanket, and falls.

That’s sort of where the consistency ended.

The endings usually lead to more… creative conclusions.

As it currently stands however, Jack is convinced that the real thing was actually just very embarrassing and mortifying for both, and not at all satisfying in practically any way: for Elsa, because she’d trampled him, and for Jack, because who the hell randomly passes out stone-cold sober on their living room floor? (While there is _company_ , no less?) It also has something to do with the yelping noise he made when she did it, but Jack is trying really hard not to remember that part. Elsa’s hand may or may not have winded up on his stomach, and he’s pretty sure he slammed his face into her collarbone; rushed apologies and heavy breathing, disoriented and suddenly being very, _very_ close. The morning afterward, Jack had enough soreness in his ribs to indicate that she’d fallen on _top_ of him, but what does he know?

Jack had made his way back to bed, post-adrenaline and restlessly tired, only after Elsa had retreated to bed herself, water glass in hand.

The next morning he’d woken up late. Groggy and anxious, Jack had padded into the kitchen as soon as he’d brushed his teeth. He wondered at the quiet of the kitchen, but walked out into the sunlight as bravely disheveled as one could be, took one look at the kitchen table, stared uncomprehendingly, and asked, “Where’s your sister?”

Turns out Elsa had woken up before either of them and had made them a three-course breakfast before Anna had even managed to find her coffee mug. Anna had already been on her second helping by the time Jack got out, but Elsa herself couldn’t stay.

Of course.

Jack had eaten reheated french toast and cold coffee in relative silence. Anna and he discussed every so often how ungracious of hosts they’d been, and how they would someday make it up to her. He had resolutely not let any trace of his persistent disappointment ruin the general deliciousness of his homemade breakfast, even if, every so often, it did manage to squeeze its way in.

“Sorry,” Anna had murmured. “My sister just really treasures having her own space.”

Jack chews, and swallows.

“Yeah. I figured.”

 

//

 

Less than a week later, and Jack has been given all of sixteen hours to pull off a dinner… thing.

“Wait. So this is _just_ dinner, right? Like—your sister isn’t bringing, like. A boyfriend or anything.”

“What? No! Like Elsa would even _have_ a boyfriend!”

“Oh. Okay. Okay, that’s—that’s good to know.”

Anna has flour on her nose and Jack has water all down his front, and at one point Anna had to retrieve a piece of lettuce from his hair. There’s music blasting, and Anna is singing, and when the spatulas come out Jack takes it upon himself to liven up the percussion section. (“Wait. Why are you holding spatulas?” “Because the whisks do not make very good drumsticks, _Anna_.”) They take turns watching over the boiling and baking and roasting of various items while the other flees down the hall to go get dressed, and it’s as Jack is rushing back into the kitchen and pulling his right arm through the sleeve of his sweater that there’s a knock on the door.

“Shit, I _knew_ I should have told her five-thirty!” Anna hisses, then winces with a face full of steam from the boiling pasta. Jack glances at the clock—five o’clock, on the dot—and almost doesn’t hear Anna when she says, “Hey, will you get her, please?”

 _Me?_ He points at himself, eyebrows jumping, and Anna half-laughs, half-growls and, “Oh, come _on_ , mister, she’s not going to bite!”

Jack keeps his mouth shut, and gets his feet walking. He takes a deep, half-stuttered breath before he looks through the peep-hole, and, ah. Yes. Elsa is even cuter than usual. How convenient.

“You,” Jack accuses, by way of greeting, “are very punctual.”

Elsa looks as alarmed as she does amused. It belatedly occurs to him that this is the first time he has seen her face since the Eve of Christmas Eve, at which point her entire expression had been entirely hidden by shadows. And very close to his face. Jack stands in the doorway and holds bravely onto his devil-may-care expression, and hopes that any redness in his cheeks could be attributed to the heat. From the pasta. In the kitchen.

“So I’ve been told,” Elsa replies, as the first traces of a grin slowly finds their way onto her mouth. Jack likes the sight very much. “Where is Anna?”

As if on cue, a metal pot clatters from the not-so-distant kitchen. Jack whips his head around at the noise, but when he turns back around from looking over his shoulder, he’s slightly started to realize that Elsa had the same idea; looking over _his_ shoulder, that is. (Although Elsa tends to keep her distance, neither of the sisters seem to really have a grasp on maintaining ‘personal space’. It’s not usually a problem, but.)

“I hope you don’t mind wine as an appetizer,” he half-jokes, but hesitates when a mischievous sheen enters Elsa’s eyes. He turns sideways to let her in, and she says something that sounds suspiciously like, “ _Not if you’d like your furniture to stay put_.” Whatever that means.

“Water would be lovely, actually,” Elsa responds, removing her coat and adding it to the collection on the hooks and _dammit_ , that should’ve been his job, right? “But I can help myself.”

“Um. That’s nonsense. This is a serious dinner experience, thank you very much, and we are professional dinner-hosts who do not let their guests procure their own water glasses,” Jack argues, and he sounds rather serious. “Obviously.”

“Indeed,” Elsa answers, completely noncommittal but with a delightful gleam in her eyes that makes Jack feel light on his feet. As if to prove just how well she can keep him on his toes, she changes track, and veers him towards the small living room off to the side. “How was your New Year?”

 _Spectacular_ , from what he’s been told. He truthfully doesn’t remember much of it.

“It was fun. My friends and I found a good club downtown,” he mentions, and hopes she won’t ask questions. “How about you?”

“Fairly quiet. I attended a banquet for the company.”

“Oh, yeah. Fancy soiree. Anna told me about that. She, like, had to wear a fancy evening dress that ‘ _was scratchy_ ’, or something.”

An interesting look passes across her face. Jack would call it a smile, but it seems like she might be trying to hide it. “Yes, I imagine so. She only stayed for the earliest part of the evening, and then she scurried off to celebrate with her other friends. Albeit without the scratchy gown.”

A few friends’ names flicker through Jack’s memory, but they grind to a halt when he catches the briefest flicker of an expression in Elsa’s eyes. “Not nearly as fun without her, huh?”

Her gaze snaps to his, surprised and looking faintly-guilty, and Jack wonders blindly for a moment if he’s seen something he’s not supposed to have seen. As per usual: foot, meet mouth.

“No,” Elsa looks thoughtful all of a sudden. “Suppose not.”

Jack does not let himself think about New Year’s Eve, and Elsa in an evening dress at a high-class party for her family’s company. It is certainly not blue, and he’s certainly not thinking about it being collar-less, and he’s certainly not about to ask her who she kissed at midnight when the ball dropped.

“Hey, sorry!” Anna peeks her head around the side of the wall, all smiles and startling suddenness, and both Elsa and Jack jump even though they were already well on their way to meet her in the kitchen. “Just a few more minutes! Jack will you get in here and help me with the sauce?”

“I could—”

“No! Nope! You, lady, dear sister of mine, are a guest, and I am ordering you to remain on the couch. No objections!”

Elsa blinks. “Yes, your highness,” she nods, clearly amused, and offers Jack a sly grin before she turns and finds her way to the sofa. Even if Elsa’s soft spot for Anna allows for some serious liberties, Jack has a feeling that she would not usually be _quite_ so accommodating—at least, without some token resistance—and wonders why she’s giving into Anna’s whims so easily.

“Jack!”

“Yep!” Jack starts. Spins on his heel and stalks into the kitchen slightly red-faced, because apparently he was staring without either of their notice. “Coming.”

Anna is a _machine_ , a force to be reckoned with. She is a multi-tasking monster. “What do you need?” he asks, overwhelmed.

“Pour some wine and get out there,” Anna directs, stirring like she’s on a mission. “Keep her occupied so she’s not tempted to start cleaning or anything.”

Now there’s a horrifying thought. (Had he left his bedroom door closed? He’s pretty sure he had.)

“Keep her occupied?” Jack echoes, amusement mixed painfully with a foreboding feeling of dread. “What am I, a distraction?”

“Most of the time, yes,” she quips, and lightly smacks his shoulder with the clean handle of her wooden spoon. Affronted, and possibly stalling, Jack mock-gasps and returns the favor with the nearby roll of paper towels.

“See if I ever again participate in your impressive schemes of making the world believe we are responsible adults,” Jack warns, clearly stalling now, but between the almost-ready pasta and the bubbling sauce, Anna doesn’t seem to notice his reluctance.

“Shush,” Anna orders, and when she points the spoon at him, a wayward spiral of fairly-hot pasta flies into his hair. “Whoops. Shit, sorry. Okay, now _go_ , she’s been alone for far too long!”

“Alone for too long? What is she—a puppy? A hermit?”

“Don’t ask,” Anna cautions with the point of her spoon, but there’s a bite to it that makes Jack raise his hands in placating surrender.

“Fine, fine,” he mutters, and grouses, and grabs two glasses and a bottle of wine on his way out.

Only to discover that Elsa has found the new photo album Anna put together a week or so ago, which had been innocuously and unwisely left unattended and on display on the shelf near the meager DVD collection. Jack stares, in abject horror, as Elsa happens to be looking at some hard-to-deny evidence of their recent trip to a nightclub with a very attentive photographer. The incriminating watermark of the stolen-off-Facebook image is smack-dab over the middle, but hides nothing of their adventures beneath.

“You certainly seem to know how to have fun together,” Elsa glibly comments, peering at him from under a very indiscernible brow. Jack does _not_ begin to sweat.

Instead he folds his lips under his teeth, searches for the most pacifying and unobtrusive response he can muster, and smacks his lips apart. “We, uh… we _do_ tend to make friends easily.”

Elsa’s half-grin turns disturbingly wry. “Friends,” she repeats, glances down to the photo. “Indeed.”

“Okay,” Jack announces shortly, setting down his peace-offerings with a decidedly quick hand and unobtrusively and inelegantly pries the photo album from Elsa’s hands. “Let’s walk down memory lane later, shall we?”

Jack ignores the blatant amusement that radiates from her frame as he stuffs the album back in place, if not a bit more obscured behind the five whopping DVDs they hold in their possession. Shouldn’t she be apologizing for invading their privacy, or something? Not that he _cares_ , necessarily, but that seems like something Elsa would do, right? _Now_ does not seem like the right time for her concept of boundaries to start shifting.

“Hope you like white,” Jack gently steers them back onto topic, twisting the corkscrew into the top with a steady hand. “Anna drinks just about anything, but from the sounds of it, you’re some kind of connoisseur.”

Elsa shakes her head gently, holding out her glass with a breath of laughter. “I’m more particular than I am knowledgeable.”

Jack lightly grins. “Sounds like a connoisseur to me.”

Her resulting glare makes butterflies shoot out from his stomach, so he distracts himself by pouring her a decent start, a respectable half-glass. He considers adding more to his own—he’ll _need_ it—but, eh. Probably better to have the clear head. Probably.

“Perhaps one day,” she concedes, and before he can properly direct her attention anywhere else, Elsa raises her glass in a silent show of cheers. Jack easily follows suit, and the clinking of their glasses is followed by the first sip of the evening.

The first of many.

 

//

 

Dinner itself isn’t so bad. Anna is actually a great cook when it comes down to it, and it’s clear that she chose a few dishes that were right up her alley. (“Don’t forget—I chopped the vegetables! I am a contributor in this evening’s success and no one can argue otherwise.” “Who’s arguing? Your role was obviously serving as the eye-candy for this evening adventure, I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss over a couple of peppers and—oh my _god_ , Jack, you’re _blushing_!?” “Anna, please, it is the steam, okay, the _steam_.”) There is laughter and a whole bottle of wine, and plenty of stories to share. Even the ones that Jack really wish they _wouldn’t_.

Like the first time Jack and Anna went grocery shopping together, and were politely asked to leave after starting a friendly sword fight with carrots. (They had always intended to buy them!) Or the time that their cable box lost connectivity during a weekend marathon of their favorite show and they had a near meltdown trying to contact customer service and do some good ol’ fashioned do-it-yourself troubleshooting with the assistance of Google. (They missed five hours of the marathon, but achieved a Major Life Accomplishment and Grown-Up Rite of Passage, so it balanced out in the end.) Jack didn’t mind so much when the stories revealed how respectable he could be (i.e. when Anna joined him for an afternoon at the children’s center where he volunteers regularly) or how capable (i.e. he makes his own pancakes), but he could probably do without the ones that include him cheating at board games (it’s _Scrabble_ , the rules don’t _matter_ ) or pranking without Anna’s explicit approval (but never _on_ Anna, because he has _learned_ ) or generally letting certain responsibilities slide under his radar (he only missed work _one_ day, _one_ time, and for a perfectly good reason, which he will reiterate as soon as he remembers what it was).

It’s not until they’re each on their second glass of wine that Jack realizes how very little Elsa has been talking about herself.

When he starts gently tilting the direction of the conversation to _her_ interests, and her current events and life-happenings, she is polite and honest and mildly cheerful, but never elaborates, never expands, not even when Jack carefully hints that he would be interested in more. She always turns the conversation on its head.

“Anna, didn’t you have a similar experience last week? I remember you saying something about one of your co-workers.”

“Oh, Kristoff? Yeah, well, you know how much of a grump _he_ can be—“

He’s not sure how he feels about it.

By the _third_ glass of wine, Jack realizes that Elsa has already excused herself from the table (and then the couch, after they’ve moved to the living room) at least three or four times. She keeps dipping out to visit Anna’s room (to take a ‘phone call’, to check something, to take a moment, who knows?) and leaving Jack and Anna alone on their love seat, and that’s when it occurs to him that Elsa—beautiful smart intelligent thoughtful clever Elsa—is matchmaking.

Matchmaking. In his own apartment.

Jack starts to feel queasy, but it could honestly be the wine. Jack doesn’t think so, though.

Because yes, Elsa is introverted and introspective and content to be by herself more often than not (he’s definitely learned that much) but Jack realizes that her constant acquiescence to letting Anna call him away for assistance (and enthusiasm for tactfully _extracting_ herself from the room) may actually have less to do with her needs to recharge her social batteries or her usual means of humoring her little sister, and more to do with her personal desire to give Jack and Anna space to be themselves, together, in their apartment. Jack is floored.

The two of them _live_ together, and yet she still feels compelled to act as subtle-secret matchmaker for them??

(If only the _other_ sister could feel so strongly about acting as a self-appointed wing-woman, he starts to think, then squashes it. He's already given up that pipe dream, thank you much.)

Jack feels his smile start to strain a little, after that.

 

//

 

After a revelation like that, a conversation needs to take place. There is too much in his system for anything to happen successfully tonight (too much discomfort and guilt, too much queasiness, too much wine) and Jack does not currently feel confident in his abilities to clearly and tactfully explain to Elsa, _look, your sister is cute as hell and I love her, honestly, but we’re not Interested in one another like that, like, at all, and—no, no, there’s nothing wrong, she’s great, she’s a great catch, no wait—_

But soon, Jack thinks.

Very soon.

 

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com)


	7. "my hair smells great, thank you"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Pasta, further miscommunication, decaf coffee, and finally (maybe) something going (possibly) right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _1/13/16_. Welp. I was super inspired last night and this chapter pretty much just wrote itself ~~when I should have either gone to bed or started packing for my vacation, but OH WELL~~. Thank you so much for all of your comments, reviews, and kudos! I'm off to Vegas in the morning (#HAPPYGRADUATION) to celebrate the completion of my Master's program last month, so it may be a couple of days before a new chapter is released! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy. :)

 

//  


Jack was wrong; the conversation ends up happening that very night.

“What’s with you?” Anna pokes him, and she has forceful fingers but she also looks legitimately concerned. Jack regrets his hiss of pain, because now she is _involved_. Anna plops herself down onto the couch next to him, where he has been sitting in relative stillness for the last ten minutes or so. He can see why Anna has taken notice of his weirdness, but he’d hoped he might be able to get away with it for at least another minute or two. Or until Elsa gets back.

Elsa, who insisted on being the one to make the run to the corner grocery store ( _“So convenient!”_ Jack remembers, waspishly) to pick up the heavy cream that Anna claims she desperately needs for homemade whipped cream for her mousse pie; who has only been gone for a total of twelve minutes, but whose return Jack is already dreading.

(Honestly, he doesn’t even remember Anna baking a pie. When did she have time to make a _pie_?)

“What’s what with me?” Jack dryly slides his gaze upwards, trying and failing to give Anna the impression that she’s imagining things. His temple is smooshed against his fist, and the whole line of him is an exhausted collection of stiff ridges and lines against the seat of the sofa. Anna takes one look at him and, without preamble, lies herself down onto the couch and places a throw pillow onto his lap. Her cheek rests comfortably on top of it. After a sigh, Jack’s hand finds its way onto her crown.

“I suck at hosting dinner get-togethers,” Anna laments into the fabric of the throw pillow, and Jack startles out of his own brooding to stare incredulously down at the head in his lap.

“Um. No, you don’t. What are you talking about?”

“The pasta was soft, I think I ate the piece of lettuce that fell into your hair, I forgot to pick up the heavy cream from the store and now Elsa has to be the one to go out and offer to go get it,” Anna sighs, apparently much more tired than she’d been letting on.

Jack purposefully does not comment on the last bit. “The pasta was fucking delicious,” he declares, and he’s pretty sure it’s close enough to the truth that Anna might actually believe his conviction. “And so was the sauce. I don’t know what to tell you about the hair thing, expect that it was probably nutritious.”

“Gross.”

“Like hell. My hair smells great, thank you.”

“It does, but that doesn’t mean I want to _eat_ it.”

“Fair enough,” Jack grins, and ruffles the carefully arranged bangs at Anna’s head. For emphasis. She huffs, but seems to be in a considerably better state than she was two minutes ago.

“At least you’re not brooding anymore,” Anna comments, as if echoing his thoughts. Jack scrunches his face in distaste, but Anna’s not looking at him anyway; she’s perfectly content to stare at the floor and let him rest his hand on her hair. “At least, not as much as you were before. What are you brooding about?”

“Nothing important,” Jack sighs, settling further into the couch. “It’s a weird thing. I’ll get over it in a few minutes.”

Anna ponders this. “Are you bored?”

Jack snorts. “No.”

“Are you mad?”

Hesitates. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Do you not like my sister?”

 _I like your sister too much_. “Definitely not the case. Your sister is polite and considerate and just the right amount of intimidating to help keep an axe-collector roommate in line.”

Anna doesn’t respond immediately. She starts playing with the faded threads at the knee of his jeans. “I know she likes you, too. I just wish she would stop acting so awkward. Wait. That doesn’t sound like what I’m trying to say,” she backpedals, gripping his knee as she puts her thoughts in order. “I’m okay with awkward. _I’m_ awkward. I just meant… I mean that I want her to loosen up a bit. To feel more comfortable around here.”

Jack nods, but wisely doesn’t comment. “You gonna talk to her?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow.” Anna burrows deeper into the pillow, squishing the fabric into his thighs. Jack takes the liberty of pushing back the hair that’s fallen into her eyelashes. Would Anna get mad if he compared her to a cat? It was always weirdly calming to sit like this, to pet her hair or whatever. She’d probably think it was funny, and spend the next three hours figuring out exactly which breeds of domesticated house pets each of them would be. “I kind of want tonight just to be about dinner, you know? There’s plenty of time for us to talk about this kind of stuff over the weekend. I’m not really sure what I could say, either? Elsa appreciates straightforwardness, but I don’t know if I can really just come right out and say, like, ‘hey, I know it’s not catered, and I know it’s been awhile since you’ve had to make conversation that didn’t include the latest financial policies, but would you mind losing the cold shoulder a bit? Like, I know she’s trying, and she probably doesn’t even realize how different she’s acting here than she does at her place, and I _know_ it’s harder for her than it is for other people, but like—I keep making all this effort and hoping that things could start to go back to the way they used to—”

The sound of the door unlocking is such a shock that Jack actually freezes, loses all control of the fine motor skills currently threaded into Anna’s hair, and stares.

“Anna, did you know that the man who owns that shop speaks three languages?” calls a voice from the doorframe. “His Russian is actually quite—”

Elsa comes fully into view, and her eyes come to rest on the couch before her, to the sight of the two of them resting cozily upon it. Jack experiences a split-second of shock over how guilty he feels, but then annoyance over it steadily follows; Elsa’s eyes caught his first, and they have yet to drift away.

“Oh yeah, but his accent is best when he sings,” Anna chirps, bouncing up to retrieve the bags from Elsa’s hands. She looks absolutely chipper compared the expression Jack saw on her face five minutes ago, and a bitter part of him wonders how much of it is real. Knowing Anna… “Sometimes Olaf will sneak me treats when I try to practice. His Norwegian isn’t half-bad either!” But Anna’s voice is already trailing off into the kitchen, off towards the direction of the refrigerator. Elsa has not moved much farther from the door.

Every few seconds, Jack and Elsa seem to be engaging in a brand new staring contest.

“I’m sorry, I should have knocked,” Elsa apologizes, gesturing to the kitchen. “I used to get on Anna’s case about it all the time when we were little. I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” she worries, just as Jack is about to open his mouth and reassure her with what little energy he could muster that it was no problem at all. The result is a spike of jagged alertness that cuts down his spine. It’s not exactly pleasant.

“No,” Jack shakes his head in a single, forceful, determined sideways motion. “Nope. Not at all.”

He leans forward, only to realize that the pillow is still on his lap, and is now about to fall off. His hand flies to keep the pillow in place and Elsa’s gaze glances sharply down to his lap, and up, and suddenly the room is feeling rather warm.

“I’m going to go see if Anna needs help in the kitchen.”

 _Okay,_ Jack means to say out loud, but his head is still kind of fuzzy, and his throat feels clogged with heat, and Elsa is already gone.

 

//

 

Jack does not necessarily believe in things like Fate, or the higher-order of destiny, or anything like that. When somebody’s spent as much time waiting for shit to finally work out like he has, Jack thinks they’re allowed to be a little skeptical of days when life works out just a little too orderly, just a little too _neatly_. He’s more than happy to believe in the power of coincidences.

The fact that Anna is dreamily sleeping off her fourth glass of wine, however, is no mere coincidence; this is something akin to divine intervention.

“At least she’s more comfortable,” Elsa announces with a sigh when she comes back down the hallway. Jack is slowly pacing a trail in the living room hardwood, hands in his pockets. “I know she’s had a hard week.”

Jack chews on his tongue and tilts his head. “She’s been super invested in this dinner-thing tonight,” he adds, and can’t bring himself to share his own two cents on the matter. “I think it’s as much of a kind of relief to have it over as much as she wanted to celebrate a pasta-dish well done.”

Elsa is shaking her head at his words, gentle and soft. Disbelievingly, and perhaps a little awestruck: “I only agreed to this last _night_.”

Jack raises his shoulders in a stiff shrug; they feel heavy when they fall. “You know Anna,” he begins, and hates the way the words feel so awkward and strange on his tongue. “Always on a mission.”

Her response is disturbingly quiet. It’s throwing Jack off-balance, and his equilibrium isn’t exactly at its peak either; Anna didn’t drink that next bottle of wine _alone_ , after all. Jack briefly wonders how Elsa is faring, but doesn’t leave himself much room to worry. She’s been a ‘responsible adult’ for far longer than either of them have, and he has the feeling that she’s actually good at it.

“Well,” Elsa begins, and it carries a note of finality that cuts through Jack’s stomach, because in all of his wiffle-waffling and brooding, as Anna called it, he’s almost forgotten the whole point of what he wants to accomplish tonight. Right now. “I better be going.”

“Hey—can I,” Jack interrupts, stepping into her path. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Jack’s not sure what to make of the disconcerted light filling up her eyes, but maybe she’s not as oblivious to his concerns as he’d thought. “Yes?”

He opens his mouth, without actually having anything at the tip of his tongue to say. Closes it, and realizes that Elsa has already taken a hold of her coat. “In the kitchen, maybe? It won’t take long,” he assures her, and hopes he’s not lying. He hopes it will be over rather quickly, to be honest.

If this change in scenery is at all raising the suspense, Elsa doesn’t let on. She takes her regular seat at the miniature table in the kitchenette, but Jack doesn’t join her. He wants to, but the space already feels stifling, and he needs to move around. Without thinking twice about it, he starts brewing himself a cup of coffee.

“So late?” Elsa wonders.

Jack doesn’t look up. “Decaf.”

When he at last feels like he’s gotten some sort of grip on himself, Jack turns his back on the noisy coffee pot and leans his hips back against the edge of the counter. Elsa is still waiting at the table, patient and attentive. An unexpected bubble of guilt bursts in his stomach.

“Look,” he begins, and shakes off the last vestiges of nerves by briefly digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time. It’s not exactly early evening anymore, and I’ve had my fair share of wine—“

“As have I,” Elsa acknowledges, much more calmly than Jack can claim. He loses his sentence for a moment, and thinks he might kill for at least a sliver of Elsa’s personal collection of serenity. How the hell can she be so calm?

“Yes. Right. Well, that aside—I just wanted to mention something that’s occurred to me, and I think it’s best if you not mention it to Anna.”

Elsa’s eyes shift and narrow, suspicion and curiosity. Probably not the best starting line. “It’s nothing bad,” he scrambles, “not necessarily. It’s just, like. A personal matter.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And like—I can totally understand the confusion, I guess, and I’m sorry if I’ve like, done anything to help perpetuate it, but I just wanted to… point out,” Jack stares at the ceiling, like a mess, sighing and gesturing and rambling, “that we’ve, like, noticed how you are when you’re here. How you always make it a point to leave the room,” he specifies, as Elsa’s expression grows increasingly closer to a scowl. He watches it shift, gradually and gratuitously, into realization. It’s more rewarding than he thought it’d be. “How you’re constantly finding reasons to avoid being around Anna and I while you’re here, or at least to be in the same room. It’s fine, I mean, if you need the space. Don’t get me wrong. I just wanted to point out that we’ve… noticed.”

 _Hey, no offense_ , he wants to come out and say, _but I’m not romantically interested in your sister,_ and _oh hey, also, I_ have _taken offense with the fact —_

“Have I been?”

Jack snaps his gaze upwards to the table. Apparently his fuzzy brain had decided to stare at the floor.

“Sorry, what?”

Elsa is smiling down at the tile, fingers tracing the groves of grout with a wistful expression that Jack is not wholly unfamiliar with, even if he’s used to seeing it on a different face. The sight of it hits Jack like a punch to the chest. “I suppose I have been rather… absent. Even while I am here.”

His mouth runs dry, but the coffee isn’t ready. His nod feels stiff and heavy. “…yeah,” he tacks on, quiet, uncomfortable.

Elsa slides a single finger over the ridge of one skinny brow, then again, slow and controlled. “I didn’t mean to display any rudeness,” Elsa explains eventually, voice shockingly strong, and the tone of it inexplicably spurs Jack into feeling fully prepared to launch into his prepped and practiced ‘ _no offense taken_ , _but hey, offense sorta taken_ ’ speech, but then she says, “It’s my own problem. I wasn’t completely ignorant, but I suppose I’ve been remiss in taking ownership of it.” She hesitates, which gives Jack a moment to catch his racing thoughts, but the feeling still swirl in his gut uncontrollably. Elsa hums. “I guess it’s no surprise that my sensitivity has made things… difficult, lately.”

Jack scowls, confused. “Wait. What?”

Elsa heaves a breath, and her eyes keep jumping back from his face to—well, just about anywhere else. “I should explain this to Anna tomorrow,” she sighs, long and tired. “Goodness knows she’s probably noticed just as much as you have, and I can only imagine what interpretations _she’s_ conjured for it.”

“Um. I’m not sure I—”

“This is going to sound awful,” Elsa reveals, and the seriousness with which she divulges this to him actually makes the hair on his arms prickle; it doesn’t help that she’s avoiding his eyes. “The truth is that… it’s very hard for me to be around you, actually. The both of you, together, that is,” she clarifies, just as he’d felt his tirade begin to scratch its way back up— “You see,” Elsa begins anew, with the rush of words that come from a confession that doesn’t want to be said, so it spills out all over the place. A confession like: “I’ve never really had very close friends.”  

Elsa considers this further. “And by that I mean… any _close_ friends.”

This…

Is not what Jack was expecting.

“I don’t understand.”

For a moment she looks at him, pondering, and then when her eyes flutter shut with a breath of chastened laughter, Jack can’t help but feel like he’s missed something. He doesn’t like the way she looks down at her hands.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. “It’s not that I haven’t _had_ friends, because I do. Lovely, wonderful people. Support systems. What I’m referring to, specifically,” Elsa takes another steadying breath, “Is the kind of friendship that you and Anna have somehow miraculously stumbled into. You know—two very trusting if not just the slightest bit jaded people, who care very strongly for the precious people in their lives, and whom people gravitate towards, and who gravitate towards each other. You know? Two people who can help light up a room or lighten up a dark moment, who are constantly and relentlessly generous with their affection and laughter with most people, but especially with each other and it’s—“ Elsa cuts off, blinking rapidly, catching herself. Jack watches, astounded, as Elsa re-centers herself with a short, single breath. “Sorry. It’s just… very meaningful. And… a lot to take in,” she admits, chagrined. “For me.”

Jack’s skin feels prickly all over. He’s not sure what it means. “But… you have…”

“Anna?” Elsa answers gently. Maybe patiently, even. “I do. And she means nearly everything to me, but… we haven’t always had each other.” Elsa’s head begins nodding, slowly, and he wonders if she even realizes. “We are close, but… it took time and effort. And many years of… trial-and-error.” Elsa tries to smile, but it resembles a wince. “That’s why I’m so glad that you two seem to be getting on so well. It’s nice to see. To say the least.”

Jack chews on his tongue. “Getting… _on_ , you said?”

Elsa winces fully now. “I’m sorry if I put any unnecessary pressure on you,” she apologizes immediately. “I knew it was probably a bad idea to mention something like that so soon—and so _forwardly_ —but I’ve spent so much of my life holding my thoughts back for fear of saying the wrong thing, and I—“ She shrugs, simply and unavoidably. “I suppose I thought that for once it might be helpful to be forthright and honest about something that was very important to me. Just in case it ended up being something you might one day want to hear.” Elsa is deflating before his very eyes. “I just didn’t want… I didn’t want you to have to worry. In case there was ever any question.”

Jack is growing very, very disconcerted by the absolute minimal contribution he has been making to this heart-to-heart.

And also at the staggering amount of assumptions that have been made on either side, but.

Just to be absolutely _clear_ :

“So… were you… I mean. You weren’t, like— _trying_ to… you know.”

Elsa’s expression shifts. “Trying to what?”

“You know, like.” Jack gestures. “Get us, like. Together or something.”

Elsa’s eyes widen, ever so slightly; Jack is beginning to feel very, very silly.

“Jack,” she says, very softly. It feels dangerous. “My sister just escaped a horrendous farce of an engagement to a con man not more than one year ago.” She lets this sink in for the space of one whole inhale, but Jack cannot do much other than stare. “She’s just only barely gotten back on her feet,” Elsa states, clear and unabashed, which is just about the exact opposite of what Jack is feeling. “You are lovely, truly, but what on earth makes you think that I would try to manipulate my sister into seeing herself in a relationship before she’s ready?”

Jack doesn’t really know what to say to that.

“If _she_ feels that she’s ready to wade into a new relationship, then that’s her decision. She’s an adult,” Elsa claims, but she says it like a reminder, and Jack’s not so sure it’s for himself. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing all this time?” she asks suddenly. “Trying to lead the two of you together?”

Jack panics. “Elsa—”

“I am so awful at this,” Elsa drops into her hands. Unlike before, she stays hidden. “I am so completely and utterly awful at this.”

“Wait, no,” Jack whispers, suddenly afraid that they’ve gotten too loud without realizing, and he steps closer to the table to—to do keep his voice low, to reassure her, what, he doesn’t know, to do _something_ . “Elsa, wait. Stop. Elsa, _stop it_ , wait. Move your hands and listen to me. Elsa—” She genuinely doesn’t seem at all interested in listening to his demands, so after a painful moment of hesitation, Jack decides, “Okay. Okay fine, I can talk to the hands, that’s okay, just—look. I should have just come right out and told you in the mall, okay? I’m sorry I got caught up in my head so much, okay, and I usually don’t have the full story so I fill in the gaps with what I _do_ know, which isn’t much. Or I read into stuff according to, like, what _I_ think about on a regular basis, which is… well.”

After too many long, awkward moments, Jack is greeted with the opportunity to meet his eyes with Elsa’s; his are rife with fresh panic, but Elsa only looks thoughtful. And disappointed.

“I suppose this could have been avoided rather easily,” she murmurs, and the amusement she aims for doesn’t shine nearly as bright as he would like it to. “I hope you weren’t too angry.”

Jack officially feels like an asshole.

“I… sorta was, actually,” Jack can’t help but admit, scrubbing two hands over his face as if he can rub away all the poor, poor decisions. “I was also an idiot. I don’t think I fully realized just how much of either until right now.” Something occurs to him. “Wait. Are _you_ still angry?”

Elsa purses her lips. She’s not exactly smiling, but at least she doesn’t look like she’s ready to call it quits and up and move into the mountains and leave him in the dust. Anymore.

“I’m glad it’s out now, at least,” she decides, and Jack wants to feel relief but his heart is still pounding in his chest. “Could have been sooner, but at least it’s there now. What unnecessary stress.” But her sigh has a thread of disbelieving laughter to it, and she half-jokes, half-sighs, “I don’t know, Jack. Is there anything else you would like to release into the open?”

He opens his mouth.

Reconsiders.

(Decides: Not if he wanted to retain any shred of dignity, or rescue any possible chance of rectifying his friendship with Elsa, no thank you.)

Elsa mistakes his silence for a completely different kind of concern. She straightens. “Is there?”

“What?” he starts. “No! No. I’m sorry, I just—you see, like… It’s weird because I’ve been building up this conversation in my head for like, four days now—”

“Oh god,” Elsa’s forehead falls into her hands again, but before Jack can even so much as twitch in her direction she’s back up, alert, listening attentively and nodding and giving him her full, undivided attention. Jack promptly loses his train of thought. “This is tragic,” she claims. “This is beyond the scope of human miscommunication and I’m just… completely mortified, more or less. I had no idea I was being so disastrous.”

“Oh god, no,” Jack argues, up in arms. “ _Hell_ no. I was like—honestly, I don’t know where I got the idea from, it’s just me being weird, okay? I just can’t like—focus more than five minutes without misreading someone’s actions, apparently—”

“No, please—stop. There isn’t any way you could have known what was going on in my head without my telling you—it’s not like it is with you and Anna, you see, you two are kindred spirits and I’ve never been very good at opening up about my genuine feelings—”

“I also was being super awkward that whole time, too, and it’s even a wonder that you even bothered with me after that—“

“I think I’d like a cup of that coffee,” Elsa announces suddenly. “If you have a cup to spare.”

Jack stares, shell-shocked. The air feels strangely bright and open and vulnerable, especially in the silence that follows. Jack tries to calm his insides, and to not let them carry away his heart.

“Yeah,” he replies, after too long. He hopes he’s not making a really painful mistake. “Yeah, course.”

 

//

 

By 2AM, he’s still not sure what it is, but there’s cold coffee and hot tea, and he’s moved into the seat at the small space of their tiny kitchen table.

Regardless of everything else, it’s really hard to see Elsa’s lighthearted laughter as a mistake.

 

//

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com)


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